HuffPost spoke with Elizabeth T. Nguyen, MD, physiatrist at HSS, about neck pain caused by sleep and strategies for addressing. 

Waking up after a night of tossing and turning, only to feel a crick in your neck, is an all-too-common experience for many adults. There are a host of reasons why this happens, but one main culprit is sleeping in a position that puts strain on your neck, or using a pillow (or even a mattress) that messes with your alignment.

When you’re sleeping, your neck alignment should be similar to when you’re standing up with good posture, Dr. Nguyen said — “everything should kind of be aligned neutrally, head on top of your shoulders, try to avoid flexing or bending the neck forward, backwards or to the side for extended periods of time.”

Keeping your neck in a flexed or bent position over many hours overnight can “stretch the neck muscles or compress certain spinal elements, such as the discs or nerves, and this chronically poor sleep alignment over many weeks to months can eventually lead to pain,” Dr. Nguyen explained.

Read the full article at huffpost.com.