Mar 8, 2024 4 min read

“Wouldn’t hurt,” the handsome young doctor said.

He was responding to my question about whether sleeping on my back might help my back pain. “Wouldn’t hurt and might help,” he said.

And so began my effort to train myself for back sleeping, a shift in habit akin to learning a new language. I once had to figure out how to communicate in Spanish while cycling through Argentina, and that was easier than this back-sleeping thing.

The back pain turns out to be a combination of some effects from cancer treatment but mostly just garden-variety aging. I and probably every other baby boomer has a bit of this problem; eventually it gets bad enough that you get yourself to the orthopedist. My moment came last May after a not-so-long bike ride; the next morning I had to slide out of bed in a manner resembling that Dali clock painting.

First up, physical therapy. My first day there, my trainer Ted stood over me like a drill sergeant and told me how to do “bird dogs” on the table.

“Stretch left arm forward as you stretch right leg back,” he said. Confused, I attempted something less “bird dog” and more “bike without a kickstand” and, stretching both right arm and right leg, fell off the table.

“Well that helped my back,” I said as I climbed back on.

Physical therapy works, but because of my morning pain, I reconsidered how I sleep, which is like a flamingo that has keeled over sideways in mid-pose: head resting on outstretched left arm, left leg extended and right leg bent up at a 90-degree angle. To add a bit of coy cuteness to the pose, I tuck my right hand under my chin. And with that, I enter deep, oblivious REM sleep for eight hours.

Apparently that configuration twists my spine, and also causes my face to wrinkle and sag. If you look up non-wrinkly people on the internet, you’ll find back sleepers and also people who use satin pillow cases, but I’m skeptical about buying those because I tend to slobber. But I did buy a special pillow made for back sleepers. It has a dent for my head.

Night one, I climbed aboard, pulled the covers up, and then couldn’t decide what to do with my hands. Under the covers? Atop the covers crossed over my chest? Both hands tucked under my chin? Arms down at my side? Hands clasped behind my head? Nothing felt right.

And what about my head? It kept trying to roll to the side, and if I fell asleep like that, what would my neck feel like in the morning? An hour passed, and then another and I lay there staring at the ceiling fan, hoping it would hypnotize me to sleep. Nope. A Google search led me to a lot of advice, mostly involving pillows. Following the advice, I placed a pillow under my back, a pillow under my knees and rows of pillows along the sides of my body to “prevent rollover.” It was like sleeping in a package of hotdog buns.

I woke up the next morning on my side, refreshed but achy. Since that night, I’ve tried the back sleeping a few more times; I think I actually drifted off once or twice, which I guess is progress. But there’s always that delicious, drowsy moment when I’m hanging there, ready to fall into sleep. By instinct, I reach out my left arm, pull up that right leg, tuck my hand under my chin, roll over.

And sleep.