By Dr. Peter Martone My name is Dr. Peter Martone. I am a chiropractor and an exercise physiologist. This is my "sleep story." When I think back to my earliest memories when I was a child, I can still remember wanting to sleep on my side, which faced the crucifix on the wall in my room. I felt secure and protected and every morning I would end up at the end of my bed or even on the floor. I never stayed in one position. As years passed I continued to be a side sleeper because that is what people do. It is how my doctors told me to sleep; I saw commercials depicting people sleeping on their sides; and my parents even bought me a side sleeper pillow. So, there I was a side sleeper and a non-thinker. I just did what other people told me to do because that is what we do. I was a side sleeper until I started having pain. Then I started thinking about the cause — and my life changed. I can still remember the day I started to think. It changed everything. Before I begin, I want to make this point clear: Thinking never happens all at once. To change your paradigm (way of thinking) it takes multiple events to happen that bring your awareness to a specific topic — just like reading this article might get you to become more aware of your sleeping position. Although my hope is that you just take my advice blindly, I understand my goal is to get you to start questioning that status quo. Like I tell my patients: "Free your mind and your health will follow." The Day I Began to Think I was watching the movie "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon" in 2000 and the two actors came out of the room after "cuddling" all night. The camera gave a quick glimpse of the room they came out of. It showed what the two actors slept on, and to my amazement it was just a thin pad for their body and a block of wood in lieu of a pillow for their head (we will get back to this later). I can remember thinking, "Ouch, that would be so uncomfortable, but then again the movie was set back in the 19th century — that is all they had." One of my passions is body biomechanics, or how the body moves and functions. I took a lot of pride in being a pain-free person until one day I had a little too much alcohol to drink at a party and fell asleep in my bed watching TV on my side. To make a long story short, I could not move my arm when I woke up. I slept on my arm, instigating a frozen shoulder (sprain of the shoulder) just by sleeping on it the wrong way. It was one of the worst pains I had ever experienced. The pain [...]