Doctors Share The Surprising Pros And Cons Of Propping Up Your Head To Sleep

If you rely on extra pillows to get comfortable at night, experts say there are a few important things to keep in mind.

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You might have heard that propping your head up at night can help you sleep, whether you’re dealing with acid reflux or snoring. However, you may have also noticed that the next day, your neck hurts. What’s that about?

As sleepless nights and achy mornings will tell you, propping your head up at night can be both helpful and unhelpful. Sometimes, it’s the answer to your sleeping woes – and other times, it’s the cause of them.

How propping your head up at night can help

One of the “clearest situations” in which elevating the upper body can help is when someone has gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), said Dr. Likhita Shaik, a sleep medicine specialist and neurologist at University of Iowa Health Care.

Gravity keeps your stomach contents from flowing back into the oesophagus.

“Acid reflux is one of the more common things that intrudes on sleep, and it doesn’t always show up as classic heartburn,” noted Dr. Sam A. Kashani, a board-certified sleep medicine physician and member of Project Sleep’s advisory board.

“Reflux can present with sore throat, cough, morning nausea and in some cases, it can trigger sleep-related laryngospasm, a sudden closure of vocal cords that causes a person to wake up choking.”

The latter can be mistaken for an apnoea-related gasp,........

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