TOPIC:

I've been sleeping tilted now for 5 nights, and I have been tracking my sleep for a couple years using the sleeptracker app. It seems that my sleep is more active than usual on the tilted bed, with fewer dips into deep sleep. I am theorizing that my body is just getting used to the new tilt (which turns out to be 4 degrees after measuring), since my back has been achy. I'm planning to give it 2 weeks, as has been suggested, but I'm having mixed results so far...a hyper-alert state at bedtime, hard time falling back to sleep after waking in middle of night, agitation during the day...I'm just wondering if there's anyone out there who pressed through and got good benefits after waiting it out. Will I eventually regain my deep sleep? I also see a couple times that my body was active during dreaming, which it's not supposed to be--it's supposed to be paralyzed. If anyone has answers or insights, I appreciate it.

Alas most of the conversations take place on Facebook, and other forums so I will ask people to answer your question on FB.

It is very normal for what you have described to occur in the first few weeks and is a settling in period. Stiff neck, aching muscles, lighter sleep, easily waking and in some cases hugely increased urine frequency, but not in all cases. Some people sleeping inclined have no problems whatsoever.
What I am fascinated and excited by, is your mentioning a sleep tracker app for your smart phone. Can you provide a link to details as this could prove very useful in the future? inclinedbedtherapy.com/my-research/my-research

Hi Kuma,
I would definitely give it more time to adjust. I have been sleeping inclined now for almost a full year. I do believe many of my issues have been eliminated or greatly relieved including my psoriasis...I had issues in the beginning for a couple of weeks while playing with different angles, but I never really experienced anything bad with it.

I did find my sleep at first was way more visual and lucid, but I like that personally. Now I sleep like a baby almost as soon as my head hits the pillow, but I dont think that is IBT myself as I am doing lots of different things healthwise to attribute every improvement I have to IBT, but I definitely attribute a lot of my improvement to IBT which is why I currently have no intention of ever sleeping flat ever again.

One thing I dont think I mentioned here last year was my urination frequency DECREASED using IBT, whereas before doing IBT I was constantly up through the night for a quick pee. I had the usual problems certainly within a week of changing to a new angle, where I would have a bad sleep for a day or two, but my body would adapt after that. I once raised my bed to angles approaching around 6.5 degrees and I definitely had some pain in my ribs at that time because of the traction issue, and when I brought it back down again all that disappeared.

I would say it may be somewhat problematic for those who have never addressed any underlying back issues, because that is definitely one area where I have noticed IBT brought out in me. Last year I was having no issues for many months, then it started where I had back aches every now and then, and I am happy it happened because it brought to the fore a back issue I had ignored 20 years ago which involved being kicked and stomped on regards my chest and spine. In fact I have recently had a number of chiropractic sessions that have greatly helped me with this, and I think the combination of IBT with chiro is greatly beneficial for people with back problems.

Personally, I do not believe IBT will cure a back problem all by itself but it will certainly provide relief of symptoms to a good degree, but this all depends on what the back issue really is, because I know Andrew has great patient cases where their back issues have been greatly improved...I am only giving you my understanding of how things are when I have spoken to chiropractors about IBT, and my understanding of the way IBT has affected me.

I believe I have something called costochondritis...I think thats how its spelled...and my chest issues all these years were really back issues that I ignored for 20 years...IBT brought this problem to the fore by giving me backache problems now and then, and I finally got chiropractic help and this along with IBT is currently working wonders for me.

In short, give it time.
Paul.

Thank you, Paul, for taking the time to reply so thoroughly. It is strange that you should mention costochondritis, because I have never heard of this condition before, but I read about it today while researching a strange pain in my chest that has been plaguing me since about the time when I raised my bed. The description of this condition seemed to match what I was experiencing. How do chiropractic adjustments help you with this? I was also considering going for an adjustment to see if it helped with the pain.

Andrew, the sleep app I use is here: www.sleepcycle.com/
I've been using it for a couple years and it is pretty accurate, for being such a low cost.

Last year after IBT my ability to sleep had already been vastly improved. Whether this was due only to IBT or other measures alone I cannot truly know, but likely IBT played a part. Just before chiro I was able to have great nights sleep but still had issues with lying on my sides for about 30 minutes before sleeping. After a few chiro sessions I noticed I was able to not only lay on my sides without a single issue, but also be able to breath in deeply yawning (while lying on side) and not feel any pain at all.

Initially before IBT the pain affected me by my not being able to sleep on my sides at all without pain throughout the night in my right side mostly, but also great tightness in the xiphoid and sternum region. I would use pillows against my chest and prop my arms up so as not to put any pressure on my chest while lying on my side. Mostly I lay and slept on my back only. Accidentally yawning while laying on my side caused intense pain in my chest and upper abdomen. This would also cause what I call "chest attacks" which even into mid last year would last up to three hours of intense physical chest pain where I could not breathe in without making it worse, and basically had to wait until it suddenly disappeared.

I was always very pained when I touched any part of the area near my xiphoid and lying on my chest was a huge no no, like I said even lying on my sides caused enough pressure in my chest to be very painful alone.

I went through many doctors to eliminate things and they were stumped. I eventually gave up on them because they had no answers and one person put it down panic attacks, which was absolutely ludicrous from my perspective.

The best thing however that they did for me was to send me to a physiotherapist, not because of their exercises because I could not do them without bad pain, but it was the physiotherapist told me my chest pain could be caused by a back problem. It turns out that the area I was having pain at is where the lower ribs connect and that from there they connect around to the back into the mid thoracic region. When we have an issue at this area of the back it causes the rib not to sit well at the front, and inflammation results over time until full blown pain is the end result.

See a youtube explanation at the bottom of this post for a better explanation.

I have only done 8 sessions of chiro at two per week for the last month and my ability to sleep now is fantastic. I was good before but my ability to breath is way better than ever and breathing in deeply or yawning while on my sides is no longer an issue, and in fact I can even lay on my stomach now...first time in over two years.

I still have not completed my chiropractic therapy and need more funds before I finish but hopefully my progress over the next few months without chiro is aided by my continued IBT. If I still feel as good in a few months as I do now I will be a ecstatic.

Link to explanation of costochondritis...part 1...


Part 2 of video...

Just a quick update: it's been 10 nights on a tilt. My eye twitching has mostly gone away, and after a chiropractic adjustment, the scary chest pain has gradually diminished to almost nothing now.

What is very surprising to me is that my sleep tracking app shows sleep efficiency consistently in the low 70's, no matter how many hours of sleep I get. This is very strange because usually I get results in the high 80's/low 90's during weekdays, and close to 100% on weekends. Last night I got 11.25 hours in bed, with a sleep efficiency of 71%. This is absolutely unprecedented and I don't know what to make of it.

I would be sooooo interested if there were anyone else out there willing to track their sleep on an incline.

The one thing that keeps me interested in IBT is that I'm still having some dreams (which, for me, usually means better sleep), and my daytime energy is quite good, so I'm not sure if my sleep is maybe more restorative or possibly I'm operating more on adrenaline (I think the latter is probably more likely since I've been waking about every hour during the night, and at bedtime I feel so alert that I have a hard time going to bed).

I will continue to post more as my results change.

UPDATE: In the last 10 days or so, I see a jump in the app's report of sleep quality, hovering more in the 80's and sometimes 90's, which is closer to what I had pre-tilt. All of the unfavorable byproducts of tilting my bed have passed, and I now have similar sleep to what I had before, with the exception of having more nights with mild dreaming (pretty much every night, whereas before, I would go in phases of dreaming on or off). I never have vivid dreams anymore.

One most remarkable change is that my edema, which I have had since at least 2004 (when I noticed it) has gone completely away. My feet look completely different--like young feet, nice and slim, and not all puffy like before. I did not actually realize how bad the edema was until now when I look down and am surprised to see these nice, slim, young looking feet and calves! If I had known how bad it was, I would have taken pictures before so that I could show the difference.

Furthermore, this overall puffiness thing has gone away from my stomach area as well, and even though my weight is only about 5 pounds lighter, I feel SO much slimmer than before. This is a terrific boost for me, as I have been steadily and helplessly gaining weight over the past 6 years or so, after having been very slim my whole life, and no amount of dieting or restriction has made an impact in that weight gain. It's so nice for the trend to reverse, and finally I am actually losing some weight, but more than that, I FEEL much lighter than I have felt in the last few years.

I am very pleased with what I'm seeing so far. My main goal is to see my sleep quality improve over what it was pre-tilt, as I have suffered from terrible insomnia, and need to be in my bed for 9-10 hours to get a manageable amount of sleep. But even if this does not happen, while I will be dissappointed in that aspect, I will be very pleased with the results I have had overall. I plan to continue sleeping tilted.

I should qualify this post by stating that I am also doing an intensive breathing program which is supposed to also have a big positive impact in overall health (it is called Buteyko Breathing). I really think that the edema has been changed by the bed-tilt, but the weight loss could be partially due to the breathing program, since it seems to have stabilized my blood sugar, and this happened before the bed tilting.

Thanks for reading.

Thanks for keeping track on changes and for posting in the forum so more people can learn from you.
The oedema improvements are expected from IBT, so can be attributed to sleeping inclined. Increased oxygen sats are another improvement to be expected.
Weight loss and the feeling of being lighter is a result of increased muscle density and I suspect conversion of fat to muscle.

My friend and I back in 1994, both noticed we gained a little weight, but our clothes became very loose.

One other consideration is the speed at which food moves through the digestive system at night, which of course helps ease people who become constipated, but also reduces the uptake of nutrients compared to slow moving food on a flat bed.

Blood sugar has also been shown to reduce using IBT. This was proven in a diabetes trial on Pohnpei Island. Results are on the site.

You should also notice changes in hair and nail growth, changes in half moons on fingers for example. Nails becoming smoother and healthier .

I'm not the least bit surprised to hear that blood sugar issues have been proven to resolve with IBT. In my case, they resolved before I tilted my bed, as a result of the breathing exercises. And the weight gain began before tilting my bed as well. But the reason I tilted my bed was because it was suggested as a way to enhance my breathing program. The idea, overall, is for my breathing volume to reduce throughout the day. I was finding that my higher breathing volume during the night was counteracting my lowered breathing rate during day, so I read about the bed tilting, as suggested on the site "normalbreathing.com." When I heard the initial information, saying that it lowers breathing rate, that cinched it for me. I figured that most of the benefits I was expecting to get from the breathing program would also be gotten from the bed tilting. I did not expect the edema results however, and I suspect that my whole body was generally puffy with water weight before, and I didn't realize it. That's how I feel now...that a whole body sense of puffiness has disappeared.

When you say "increased oxygen sats" what exactly is that?