Lately,
I’d been noticing how stiff and achy my body felt when I woke up in the morning.
Especially my right shoulder.
At first,
I thought maybe my futon or pillow just wasn’t right for me.
But then I suddenly realized something.
Recently,
I had started sleeping while trying to keep my posture perfectly aligned—
whether I was lying on my back or on my side.
Very “correct.”
Very controlled.
And I wondered:
…What if that was actually the problem?
Even in the middle of the night,
if I noticed my posture collapsing,
I would half-wake up and quietly readjust myself.
Maybe that was also why
I’d been waking so easily lately.
Trying to maintain perfect posture
even while sleeping…
Maybe that wasn’t healthy at all.
Maybe it’s more natural
to loosen completely.
To sprawl.
To curl.
To let the body move however it wants to move.
When I sleep on my side,
I apparently curl up like a caterpillar.
And when I sleep on my back,
my legs flop around with absolutely no elegance.
But strangely,
it feels so comfortable.
Like my whole body is saying,
“Ahhh… finally.”
And maybe because of that,
the stiffness I usually feel in the morning
felt a little lighter today.
I don’t think many people
try to “correct” their posture even while sleeping
the way I do.
But people who wake up already feeling exhausted or stiff—
I wonder if some of them
might actually be people with “good sleeping posture.”
In rehabilitation work,
I hear this often.
“My sleeping posture is very good.”
“People always tell me I have excellent posture.”
People sometimes say it
almost proudly.
But at the same time,
many of those same people
struggle with stiff bodies,
lower back pain,
or neck pain.
The kind of “good posture”
people praise in everyday life
is often overly straight.
The spine loses its natural curves,
becoming rigid instead of balanced.
And people with that kind of posture
often struggle with rotational movement too.
In other words,
they may not roll over easily while sleeping.
So when someone says,
“I sleep perfectly still all night,”
it might simply mean
their body isn’t moving enough.
Rolling over during sleep
is actually an important natural movement.
It redistributes pressure,
reduces strain,
and protects the body throughout the night.
So honestly,
it makes sense that people who barely move in their sleep
wake up feeling painfully stiff.
And maybe,
without realizing it,
I had started forcing myself into that state too.
Maybe curling up like a caterpillar,
or having messy sleeping habits,
isn’t a bad thing at all.
Maybe it’s actually a sign
that the body still knows how to stay flexible.
These days,
the world often treats strength training
and “perfect posture”
as though they are always the correct answer.
But in the end,
I still think
the body itself already knows the answer.