Yes, You Can Become a Back Sleeper. Here’s How.

When I first started backpacking, I quickly became jealous of one of the guys in my friend group.  He could get to camp, roll out a dirty closed-cell foam pad, and pass out within minutes, arms crossed over his chest like a mummy in a sarcophagus. Meanwhile, I was huffing and puffing into my inflatable pad, then tossing and turning all night on a plastic sack that crinkled and squeaked with every fidget. Such is the plight of a side sleeper.

Both side sleepers and stomach sleepers often struggle with mummy bags, which are usually too tight to cock a leg and aren’t designed to let you toss or turn. Sleep face-down, and you’re likely to fill your bag with damp exhales, compromising the insulative power of the down. There are some physiological benefits to sleeping on your back, too. It promotes better spinal alignment and can reduce back and neck pain—both common among backpackers. And it reduces the pressure on your hips, shoulders, and knees, particularly when you’re sleeping on a relatively thin pad.

I always figured my sleeping position was something I was born to—like being a night owl or a breakfast person. But then, in 2015, a good friend of mine hiked the PCT. He’d resolved to do it fast, with a sub-10-pound baseweight. In keeping with this ultralight quest, he decided to bring only a thin, closed-cell-foam pad, figuring it would force him to become a back sleeper along the way. At the time I shook my head; the whole thing sounded miserable to me. But when he returned from the trail several months later, he gleefully reported that he’d done it: He was a back sleeper now. I could scarcely contain my envy.

Was he the anomaly? Or had he discovered some secret hack that I could replicate? To find out, I called up Ellen Stothard, Ph.D., a sleep researcher at the Colorado Sleep Institute. Here’s what she had to say.

Why Can’t I Sleep in the Backcountry?

I often struggle to sleep in a tent. Turns out, it’s surprisingly common—and sleeping position isn’t entirely to blame. Here are a few of the top reasons for poor sleep in the backcountry.

You didn’t give yourself enough time to wind down.

According to Dr. Stothard, many people sleep better on vacation than they do at home—provided that the vacation is relaxing. If you’re on the trail from dawn to dusk or don’t give yourself enough time to wind down before bed, you’re more likely to struggle to sleep.

“Many of the athletes I coach are go-go-go all day,” she explains. “They have their training and work, and then their personal life and family, and when they lay down to sleep, that’s the first minute all day that they have to themselves to let their mind run where it wants to run.” The bedroom becomes the place to catch up on reflection and rumination. The result is sleep disruption. That same thing can happen in the backcountry, Dr. Stothard says, especially if you’re on a trip that demands you hike, problem-solve, or socialize all day long.

You’re worried. 

“A lot of people have this experience where they’re worried about bears, or whether they packed the right thing, or whether they closed the tent door,” Dr. Stothard says. If you’re stressed about an early wakeup or the next day’s mileage, that will keep your brain running, making it tougher to pass out.

“There’s also this phenomenon where people tell themselves they never sleep well the first night of a camping trip,” Dr. Stothard says. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy: If you’re worried about falling asleep, it will take you much longer to do so. If you start telling yourself the truth—that it’s possible to sleep super well any night of the trip—you may start to experience a different outcome.

You’ve been drinking.

If you tend to drink around the fire on camping trips, that can have a big impact on your sleep. Numerous studies show that alcohol impacts REM sleep and reduces sleep quality. It also causes the muscles in your throat to relax, which can cause your airway to collapse. That’s why people tend to snore after they’ve been drinking. Collapsing airways can also wake you up in the middle of the night, a condition called sleep apnea.

Dr. Stothard suggests you stop drinking at least two hours before bedtime to limit the negative impacts, though some studies suggest three to four hours. Ditto for eating. “If your stomach is super full, you could have indigestion or acid reflux,” Dr. Stothard says. Both can disrupt your sleep.

You’re at altitude. 

People tend to sleep poorly at altitude, even if they’ve acclimatized. Many of Dr. Stothard’s clients come to the Colorado Sleep Institute for treatment after moving to Colorado from lower elevations.

“The partial pressure of the air around you impacts the integrity of your body’s ability to breathe,” Dr. Stothard says. So when the air is thinner, your airway has less support, making it more likely to collapse. As a result, many people tend to snore or sleep less soundly at elevations well above sea level.

You’re getting woken up by physical discomfort. 

Physical discomfort is another big issue with camping. If you’re using a claustrophobic mummy bag, haven’t brought enough clothing to keep you warm, or can’t find a thick-enough sleeping pad to cushion those hips and shoulders, you’re going to have a bad time. Achy joints can wake you up in the middle of the night, causing you to toss and turn.

Is It Possible to Become a Back Sleeper?

According to Dr. Stothard, sleeping on your back isn’t always the best option, as much as ultralight backpackers might claim otherwise. If you have sleep apnea, sleeping on your back can put your throat in a relaxed position, making your airway more likely to collapse.

That said, if you want to change your sleeping position, it’s certainly possible to do so—it just takes a lot of work.

“We call this positional therapy,” Dr. Stothard says. “It’s an option we present to a lot of our clients.”

Your body can fall asleep in any position; you’re not born with a predisposition to stomach-sleeping, side-sleeping, or back-sleeping.

“The only physiological requirement for falling asleep is the activation of your parasympathetic nervous system,” Dr. Stothard says. In other words, complete relaxation. “If you’re telling yourself that you’re not going to be able to fall asleep, or that you’re never able to sleep on your back, that’s going to activate your sympathetic nervous system [i.e., the stress and critical thinking part of your brian].” If that system is turned on, your parasympathetic nervous system won’t be able to take over.

The bad news is that there’s no set recipe for positional therapy. Instead, you just have to keep trying new things and giving yourself plenty of time to relax and get used to whatever the new sleeping position is. If you’re used to sleeping on your side, that’s your “safe position.” It will take time for back sleeping to feel like an equally safe go-to. And the more stressed you are about falling asleep by a certain time, the more likely you’ll give in to that default position.

Dr. Stothard’s first piece of advice: Eliminate this stress by giving yourself plenty of time in bed. If you usually need seven hours of sleep a night, make sure you’re in bed for at least eight so you’re not stressed about falling asleep right away. Then, set yourself up for success. Put your phone away, stretch or meditate before bed, or do something else that you know will make you feel peaceful. (Dr. Stothard likes to close her eyes and imagine herself petting her dog, which immediately lowers her heart rate.) Next, make sure you’re as comfortable as possible in your new position. That could mean surrounding yourself with pillows so you feel cozy and locked-in, or placing a bolster under your knees to simulate the fetal-position feeling that side-sleepers love.

Over time, the new position will start to feel as safe and familiar as the old, and you’ll have switched. I’ve been working on this for several weeks now, and I’m only just beginning to fall asleep on my back. I usually wake up on my side, but hey—baby steps.

“It just takes practice,” Dr. Stothard says. “Just as you shouldn’t walk out the door with a brand-new pair of shoes when you’re hiking the PCT, you also shouldn’t start testing this stuff out on the first day of a backpacking trip. Practice at home, camp in the backyard—do whatever you need to do to break in those habits before you take the show on the road.”