Episode 38: Can We (Really) Sleep Wrong?

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• Joe Gambino
• Joe LaVacca

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Summary
In this episode of the Beyond Pain podcast, hosts Joe Gambino and Joe LaVa reflect on their New Year experiences and set personal goals for 2025. They discuss strategies for starting fresh, emphasizing the importance of adding or subtracting habits to improve health and wellness. The conversation shifts to the common belief that one can sleep 'wrong,' with both hosts agreeing that this is a myth. They explore the significance of sleep quality and its relationship to pain, concluding with a commitment to revisit the topic of sleep habits in future episodes.

Takeaways
Setting realistic goals is crucial for personal development.

Adding or subtracting habits can kickstart healthier trends.

Sleep position is not the main cause of pain.

Consistency in sleep schedule is more important than duration.

Pain can alter perceptions of sleep quality.

It's essential to avoid demonizing certain sleeping positions.

Improving sleep quality can significantly enhance overall well-being.

Small habit changes can lead to substantial improvements over time.

Future episodes may focus on practical sleep habits. 

Transcript

Joe Gambino (00:00.844)
Welcome back into the Beyond Pain podcast. I am one of your hosts Joe Gambino and I am here with definitely having a ton of tech issues Joe LaVacca well Welcome back Joey boy. We just had a two-week hiatus and I'll get through the rest of it if you do want to Follow us on social media. You can find us Joey LaVacca's at strength in motion underscore PT I am at Joe Gambino DPT This podcast is on Instagram as well

Joe LaVa (00:06.98)
Lord

Joe Gambino (00:29.094)
the Beyond Pain podcast and on YouTube as well, cupsofjoe underscore PT. Joe, welcome back in. I know you're having some, some difficulties today, some struggles, but hopefully the rest of 2025 has been good to you.

Joe LaVa (00:39.032)
man.

Yes, this has been really the only big hiccup. 2025 was off to really great start. We had 10 days now of data points, enough to say, yes, it was good. I log in today. My camera's not connecting for some reason. It's not a wifi issue because every other page works. So I am hoping, praying that the rest of the episode goes well and

think just based off the last 10 days, I have to hold out confidence that it will. So, I apologize, Mr. Gambino. Yeah, and it's a... Lord. Good Lord. Well, anyway, how has your New Year been? Yeah, it's sad.

Joe Gambino (01:18.612)
Fingers crossed, you've already been kicked out of this room once. So, you know, don't apologize to me. You can apologize to the listeners if this doesn't get out on time. But yes, yes, I'm glad we're back. You know, two weeks of not seeing you. Yes, yes. Well, as I was trying to tell you before you got you disappeared from me, we had some visitors to ring in the new year. Some friends surprised us.

I was out on date night with Jen. We had babysitter come for the kids. All of sudden Jen asked to go home a little bit early. I was like, what the hell is this? I get outside, working out of the car. I hear a crying baby that doesn't sound like my child. I'm like walking over to my front door and there's Fernando and Jamie sitting on the porch waiting for us to get there. Fernando with the drinking hand to give to me. So that was nice. And then we just went up to boon.

Joe LaVa (02:04.558)
That's awesome.

Joe LaVa (02:09.261)
Thatta boy.

Joe Gambino (02:13.3)
I'm up in the mountains here in North Carolina to get Olivia her first snow experience. So I have to say the initial start these 10 days have been great so far. How about you Joey Boy?

Joe LaVa (02:23.586)
Yeah, no, also again, very good. I'm back out in Colorado. I had a good return week back in the clinic. I think it was a little slow to get my brain back online. I think what I had done over those two weeks was inverse a lot of my normal habits. So I was taking 2,000 steps a day and eating 10,000 calories. So I don't know if anybody else could relate to that, but that's definitely been the math I've been playing with for sure. man.

Joe Gambino (02:48.036)
I think I can. I'm up a pound and a half since since the holiday started. So which ain't a bad thing for me. So.

Joe LaVa (02:53.796)
Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know, we can both maybe use a little bit more density. I know I could grow my upper body. Maybe that's gonna be my goal for 2025. a little bit more of a, yeah, become a little bit more of a rectangle rather than an upside down triangle. I think that's sort of what I'm looking forward to. Any goals for yourself for 2025? I think we did a goal episode, but I can't remember.

Joe Gambino (03:00.604)
Cast the arms up to the thighs.

you

Joe Gambino (03:13.765)
Yeah.

We did, I don't know if we did a goal episode. I know we did a recap, but I would, yes, correct, yeah. I don't remember if we did enough, but in a real quick recap, I would say for me, right now I'm like 168-ish. I weighed this morning. If I can get up to 175 in a year, I think that'll be nice. Not trying overly hard.

Joe LaVa (03:21.156)
I think we did helping people with their goals, but I don't know if we talked about maybe ours.

Joe LaVa (03:41.124)
That's great.

Joe Gambino (03:43.132)
to put on weight this time and it's coming. that's good. I think I was thinking about this yesterday actually, it'd be really nice to, 38 now, coming on 40, I have almost two years, cause I'm a November baby. But maybe by the end of the year hit like 355, 360 on the deadlift, which will be like an absolute PR for me. Just got back to 300 for the first time in quite some time. we'll just steady, steady tracks, see what happens.

Um, and then, uh, golf wise finally get below a 30 handicap. I'm like right on the cusp. Playing a little bit better golf of the last couple of rounds that I've played. So if I can finally get there, I think that would make 20, 25 pretty sweet.

Joe LaVa (04:24.536)
I love that. absolutely love that. Well, funny enough, I was talking to my coach, Mr. Ross, and I actually told him, you know, I'm pretty happy with where I've gotten to with a bench press, where I've gotten to with a squat, and I wanted to join like the two, three, four club that I made up in my mind. So bench two plates, squat three, deadlift four. So I currently am up to...

Joe Gambino (04:25.884)
What about you?

Hmm

Joe LaVa (04:50.372)
I think 360 or 365 right now. And I was thinking of trying to get to a good four plates by the end of the year as well, even if just to pull it one time and just walk away before I turn 40 as well. And yeah, so we got a couple of big things looking up on the horizon there, my friend.

Joe Gambino (05:08.154)
Yeah, I like that. like that. Yeah, I mean, that's a nice, nice strength goals there. I think I think you can do it. Just just keep chipping away. I think that's consistency and I mean, you have a great coach. So I think that will that will get you there. But let's shift gears here. I do want to dive in. I got a question of the day for you, Joe. And this is actually something that as I've been having some conversations on Instagram with people, a theme that I've seen a lot, maybe over the last two weeks, I probably had, I don't know, maybe like 10.

Joe LaVa (05:18.008)
Yeah. Yeah.

Joe LaVa (05:23.512)
Yeah.

Joe Gambino (05:35.898)
different occasions where this exact thing came up. So I'm gonna pose it to you to see if you can help some of our listeners if they are struggling with this. What would you recommend someone to do if they just didn't know where to start? Whether they've done something before in the past and it hasn't worked or they're just trying to figure out how to get started. What advice, what tips would you have for someone who's just like, I don't really know what to do at this point, moving forward.

Joe LaVa (05:59.298)
Yeah, I think, yeah, I'm sure I've been having a lot of the same conversations as well, if not exactly the same, relatively similar. I think what I've been presenting to people at the start of the year is thinking about if it's easier to add one thing or subtract one thing. Because for some people, it might just be removing a barrier or removing a behavior that might kickstart some healthier trends for them into the new year.

And then for some people who have some of the basics dialed in, well, what's the next easiest thing for you to add? So one client, I just was talking with her yesterday, and she mentioned how she got motivated again chatting with her friend. Her friend, 20 or some odd years ago, had reached up to about 325 pounds, got gastric bypass surgery.

now has been able to lose 200, keep it off, well into now her 70s, and she's been pretty active. And that conversation inspired my patient to sort of think about, well, I don't have 200 pounds to lose, but I definitely think that I can afford to lose a little bit to just improve my quality of life. So we both agreed. And then when we talked about...

you know, her just nutrition. I'm not a nutrition coach, but you know, we went through, I think we both did the precision nutrition thing together or at least at one point or another. I like to say we know enough to be a little bit dangerous. And as we're kind of just sitting there just talking about her regular day, what we both sort of honed in on was this idea of sweets. So it wasn't going to be adding fruit, adding vegetables, making a salad for lunch. that idea to her wasn't really all that.

kind of like fun or like helpful to deal with. So what we just did or what we agreed upon was just like, well, maybe eliminating sweets altogether is not gonna be realistic, you going from zero to 100. But what if we made sweets more of a ritual, like something that we celebrate? Like you have it on Wednesday and Saturday or, you know, just one day a week. And now you can, you know, have a cheat night. You still sort of like have this craving satisfied to some degree.

Joe LaVa (08:20.29)
And it's actually more special because you're making it like honed in to like one event in particular. Right? With some other people, you know, kind of feeling better from some aches and pains that they've been having. I know a lot of people were like, Hey, I want to really start getting back into the gym, you know, start strength training like I was. And again, referencing where they were six months ago. And they're like, I want to get back to three or four days a week at the gym. And I'm like, that's great. I appreciate you want to add.

maybe do we think it's more sustainable to just simply go back to the gym twice a week? Let's start with some wins, right? So those are just the two most recent conversations I had over the last couple of days of adding was easier for one person because they had little wins already built up and then sort of subtracting was easier for someone else. But that was sort of a new idea. So I'll need a couple more data points to see if it actually works. Like, do you want to add or subtract?

Do you have a preference when working with clients? you kind of put, cause I've heard both, like it might be easier to remove barriers rather than add things, but I kind of started just offering up, what do you think? You know, for each person.

Joe Gambino (09:33.05)
Yeah, I think it, I mean, it can go either way. I mean, it's always easier to subtract than add. So keeping that in mind, and it just really comes down to what is the person currently dealing with. If there's already like, they're trying a lot of things, it's probably easier to subtract and, you know, almost like simplify it to make it easier so they can build a habit. And if they're not really doing anything, then you're probably going to just have to add unless there's something like significant getting in the way from them to do so.

So then it's just starting with the small change. And what I love about precision nutrition is just like, really, you're just trying to like one, like when I'm working with people on like a nutrition, it's like, let's make one little habit change. So let's find out what's the lowest hanging fruit that we can start with. And we're just going to start with it for maybe like one day of the week. And when you can do that consistently, then it's two days, then three days, then four days. And I'm working with a friend of mine and she's been struggling with some consistency and we've literally just like stopped everything.

And it's like, okay, I'm just going to put habits and true coach. And all you're going to do is either go into the gym. You're either going to get on your Peloton. You're either going to go for a walk or you're just going to do some mobility work and you're just going to mark it as done. And that's it. Doesn't matter how much. And she's crushing that. Like that's it. So now sometimes you just need to, that's almost like a subtraction, but also, me, adding as well, which is just do anything. and let's get that habit for 30 days and then move on from here.

Joe LaVa (10:32.44)
Yeah.

Joe LaVa (10:58.628)
Right. Now I love that habit box on True Coach and I think it's made a really big difference for a lot of people. I've been just doing like, hey, drink your body weight in water, you know, like go for a micro walk for five minutes. You don't even have to actually mark how long it was. Just mark that you got it done. Just so you can start to see this momentum, these green checks, you know, that for anyone who has used True Coach, know, whenever you complete something or do something, you get a trophy, there's a celebration, there's confetti, you know, all those like kind of wonderful things that give you a little, you know, nice little dopamine hit.

So if you can kind of keep building that up, I love that idea. And consistency, like I said, think consistency means something different for everyone now. And I've tried to be a little bit less stringent, again, even entering the new year, where I want to make sure people feel free to move days around in True Coach if they need to. if you did hit two walks last week, or if you did hit two strength,

Joe LaVa (11:54.56)
getting in two days again this week, right? Don't worry about another day. Don't worry about if it was Monday or Wednesday or anything like that. Just simply keep consistent with two, two, two. And that could be Monday and that could be Friday or the next week it could be Tuesday and it could be Wednesday, right? We're just building up those consistent days. I think it's been a more...

positive message and I was used to delivering because it was always like very structured. I think people shied away from too much structure. So I'm even just trying to be a little bit more flexible going into the new year.

Joe Gambino (12:32.036)
No, I love that. And I think just one more turning point for for people listening and is kind of where kind of been telling some people is like literally just like if you're not sure where to go and you're not looking to, you know, necessarily hire somebody or have a conversation with someone to point you in the direction, do something, make sure you give it enough runway. So like pick something to do, whether it's something you found on YouTube or I don't know, some old stuff that you've done. Do it for two, three, four weeks.

No changes, that's okay, right? Because you just tested something out and then move on to something else. But you have to give it some time to see if it actually works. And then the other thing I always tell, this is like what my clients like, if you find anything that, even if it's short term helps you just a little bit, like one or two movements, you're probably gonna wanna double, triple down on it because likely if you do a lot more of it, it's gonna help calm down the system. So if you've been struggling with pain, not really sure where to go, or even with fitness and not really sure if you just do something, give it little bit of a runway.

Joe LaVa (13:19.733)
Yeah.

Joe Gambino (13:30.234)
See how it goes. can always make changes in the future. if things aren't going exactly how you want. All right. Well, let's shift gears here. I want to get into the meat of potatoes in today's episode. our topic of today is, you sleeping wrong? I think this is something I hear from a lot of people. I woke up in pain and it has to be because I slept wrong. so let's, you know, maybe we'll, you know, what let's start here, Joe. Do you think that this is myth or truth?

Joe LaVa (13:45.664)
Yes.

Joe LaVa (14:00.864)
My thing that I've always had over the last, like even, I mean, I think 15 years now of doing this, it's myth. mean, sleep is sleep. I don't care what position you do it in. I don't care if you're upside down. The thing I care about is that you are, let's just go back to the word we were just saying, consistent with your sleep habits and consistent with your sleep schedule. And the reason really kind of why I started to think about that was,

Throughout the course of humankind history, we did not have beds and pillows and everything else. So we were either sleeping in trees, we were sleeping on dirt. When I wrote a blog way, way back for Perfect Stride, right, it was actually a blog about pillows and pillows weren't even invented until like the Roman Empire came around. And even then they were like this sign of like status or wealth.

So you and I probably didn't have pillows back in the Roman Empire days. We were going home and laying on some straw and that was about it, you know? And this lap of luxury or these foam tops into this and the curvature for your head so it keeps your spine in alignment. I'm like, well, what the hell were we doing when we were sleeping on stone? What the hell were we doing when we were sleeping in dirt or sleeping up on trees and weird angles? So it's just like escape predators at night. So if we are sleeping wrong, being completely...

horizontal and I've heard my clients say, I shouldn't sleep on my side. I shouldn't sleep on my stomach. And I always just say why. they, you know, they'll blur down and answer, Oh, it's bad for my neck because it keeps me in this position. Oh, it's bad for this. It's bad for that. And I'm like, right. Well, who taught you that? And you know, and then the blank stare happens. I think I just know like, isn't that just common knowledge? And it's like, well, we have to come back to how you know that. Where do you know that from? Who taught you? Where did they find out the information from? Because

I haven't seen anything on sleep posture. I don't even know how you would study this because once you are asleep, how you and I control moving our bodies, mean, unless you were going to cocoon us, I don't know how you would even just kind of come up with these ideas or scenarios. So I'll stop. I think it's myth. What say you, Mr. Gambino?

Joe Gambino (16:21.53)
Man, when you started talking about this, the first thing I thought about was that perfect shrug blog that you wrote a million years ago. So you're still talking about it, Joe. You're still talking about it.

Joe LaVa (16:26.568)
Hahahaha

I didn't think about that blog until I started talking about it right now.

Joe Gambino (16:32.293)
Ha ha ha.

Joe Gambino (16:37.004)
As far as where I am with it, I also view it as a myth. think when, you again, you mentioned it, right, we move so much during sleep, it doesn't matter, you know, you I don't like laying on my stomach because it hurts. So I start on my back, you may end up on your stomach. And that might be one reason why you wake up in pain in the morning. The way I look at it is the similar we talked about about posture is it's not really the postures right that are that are wrong or causing your pain. It's the repetitive strain of something so.

Joe LaVa (17:03.232)
Mm-hmm.

Joe Gambino (17:06.684)
If you have an injury or you've had pain for a while and it became so sensitive that sleeping in a position or just being maybe, maybe a lot of people who have, who struggle with pain is because whenever they're not moving, pain comes up. They've been sitting for too long, they lay for too long inactivity is what drives their pain or maybe certain positions that do it. So in those cases, it's more of the repetitive strain of being in your bed for X amount of time. That's really driving pain when you're getting up.

Joe LaVa (17:28.81)
Sure.

Joe Gambino (17:37.018)
So less about the positions, less about how you sleep and more about how your body just tolerates the demands of it. And sometimes maybe a softer bed can do the trick. mean, like I know I've had pain waking up in the morning and mattress topper was a short-term solution for me. Then at some point a firmer mattress was a solution for me. I think sometimes novel stimulus, right? Or something that's going to change the forces on your body when you're sleeping can improve how you sleep, but it's not.

Joe LaVa (18:04.436)
Mm-hmm.

Joe Gambino (18:05.326)
anything that I would ever recommend to somebody because it's like, you're just like throwing something at the wall and hoping that it sticks. but you could try something like that in a short term and then working on the things that are going to help get your body moving better, feeling better. where if you, if being inactive is something that drives pain, how can we start to reduce that and improve that? And as that stuff gets better, sleep should also get better. But usually what I tell people is that's the last thing that comes when you're going through a rehab process to reduce pain.

First we're to see these little transient changes in pain. We're going to start to build up tissue resistance resilience after that. And then at some point, hopefully, you know, morning stiffness, morning pains would start to improve, but that's going to be a little bit down the road. And you just use strategies. Most people say, Hey, when I start moving, I feel better. So your strategy at that point, I think would be how do you start to, what kind of routines can you have in the morning to get yourself back on track as quick as possible? And then, you know, go through your day and then, you know, you have to do it again when you're sleeping at night. But

I know, I rambled in a lot of different directions there, so hopefully that made sense.

Joe LaVa (19:07.168)
No, I think it did. I think, you know, just coming back to the actual topic, the question, like, are you sleeping wrong? No. If your eyes are closed and you're able to go through REM sleep, non-REM sleep, hopefully get in anywhere between six to eight hours, right? Maybe that's, you know, sort of individual, right? Based on some of the things I've read, a lot of people push seven, a lot of people push eight, a lot of people seem to be pushing a range.

I read a research article this week that actually talked about your schedule and the consistency of your schedule might be even more important as a sleep factor for overall mortality than making sure you're getting seven or eight or whatever every night. it's some nights I go to bed at midnight, but then I wake up at eight. Other days I go to bed at 10 and I wake up at five. So I sort of thought about my schedule. Even when I'm out here in Colorado, I realized that I'm sort of

into that same loop. Like I'm always going to bed around 10, 30, 11, and I'm waking up at anywhere probably between 5, 45 and 6, 15. Right? So either West Coast, East Coast, I don't change my sleep habits. Whatever the clock says, it's like, that's kind of when I fall asleep. But again, a lot of clients are, you I work late on Tuesdays or hey, you know, there's these like long stretches of time with the kids and these things happen.

But when you're able to figure out what's the best time for you to go to sleep, just stick with that. If it's 10 or 1030, have a rule where it's lights out. I'm gonna try to fall asleep. And if you can't, after 20 or 30 minutes, then maybe pop up, maybe start reading some form of maybe light activity around the house. Like, oh, I didn't clean this, I didn't clean that. Okay, go do that. Don't start putting on lights. Look at your cell phone, play video games. Do something that's super, super stimulating.

because then that's gonna alter your rhythm just a little bit. So I care when I talk to patients about this, not the positions they're sleeping in, what are their habits leading up to sleep? Because I do think those habits could be, let's say, opportunistic or worth improving. And what is your sleep schedule? And do you follow the same thing? Because I know a lot of people, like let's just label my daughter here, Avery likes to stay up late when it's not a school night or try to.

Joe LaVa (21:31.954)
and then she sleeps in on the weekends like a lot of kids do. And I know a lot of adults that do that too. Hey, I don't have work tomorrow so I can binge watch Squid Game. I can watch this movie. I can sleep in till nine, 10 o'clock because I'm trying to catch up on sleep. And I always tell them that's probably way more disruptive than if you just took your seven, your same six or seven hours. Don't shoot for 10, 11, 12 on the weekend. Just stay consistent.

What are your thoughts on sleep schedule or habits? Is that something that comes up a lot for you with clients?

Joe Gambino (22:06.332)
Uh, yes. If someone's like, mean, I don't really do a whole lot of like sleep coaching with people. Maybe I should, you know, I mean, I have some resources that, you know, I mean, I was just thinking about the book, Why We Sleep, that we read that perfect stride for a little book club, which was an excellent book. And I recommended anyone listening, if you want to learn about what kind of things help you get better sleep. I love that this is where the conversation went because I think it is important quality sleep is

just as important as anything else for mortality, for our brain function, for just about everything that we do, right? Recovery, pain. So I think if you can improve the quality of your sleep, it's low-hanging fruit that can really make a difference in someone's quality of life. So, and then just, I don't really know if I have anything else to add on top of that. think having a consistent schedule.

Same thing lights, know using blue light glasses Maybe you're something like that before bed or turning off devices, you know 30 minutes before you're falling asleep to help kind of like deregulate a little bit to Be able to help yourself sleep better But just kind of going back to the point like, know, I definitely don't think there's there's a wrong way to sleep But you know, if something's painful, you're gonna probably want to try to I would say like avoid it So you're not irritating these I know for me personally Like on my stomach usually will just cause a problem. I can lay on my stomach way longer than I

I used to, but if I was to sleep on my stomach, I would definitely wake up with a creaky back. so I just don't, I don't really think I find myself ever waking up where I've rolled onto my stomach. Maybe I do. I can't say that, but I either fall asleep on my side or my back. and then I just let the night take me wherever, wherever it takes me from there.

Joe LaVa (23:49.824)
Yeah. And my last thoughts also, just because you brought up pain, is that when you're in pain and there's active inflammation or active healing going on in an area, it can definitely give you that perception of, I'm sleeping wrong or I can't sleep on this side. And I think that that is 100 % temporary. I think you can find a position of tolerance if you want to.

But I've had plenty of people over the course of the last several years tell me, yeah, you know what, my shoulder always bothered me when I laid on my right side, so now I sleep on my left. And I'm wondering if this couldn't, you know, if my neck pain now or my back pain now is contributing to that. And I tell them absolutely not. As long as you're sleeping, you pick a different position, I'm totally fine with that. I happen to be a little bit more of like a three quarter. So I'll go and take a pillow.

And I same as you, like I liked sleeping on my stomach for most of my life. And then I would realize, like occasionally I'd wake up and be like, you know, stiff and achy and it would go away. But I'm like, do I really want to start my day feeling stiff or achy? that the first thing I want to feel? So all I did was start propping just like a pillow underneath whatever side I'm kind of on. And that was just enough to keep me quarter turned. And now I'm totally fine. Now I would say being an Italian, which is basically like a heat engine at night.

You know, it definitely gets harder when you're sleeping with someone versus sleeping by yourself. But to me, I think the biggest thing I always try to tell people and that's a bias is, hey, just make sure your room is as cool as possible. You know, we don't want it to be 70, 72 degrees. The thing that always helps me sleep better is when my room is cold and we want to have that drop in tissue temperature at night, which happens anyway. That's part of your rhythm. So anything that's going to drive up your temperature at night.

could then also trigger a sympathetic response that also might be connected to pain. So whatever we can do to keep things relaxed, keep it down, that might help you if you're sleeping in pain. It doesn't make those two weeks really pleasurable. There might not be any position that works for you. I know it sucks. I'm sorry. It will pass. And then we'll learn from it or you'll figure out some other adaptive position. But I don't think any posture with sleeping

Joe LaVa (26:15.358)
is correlated with any sort of pain. If one position used to work for you and now it doesn't, that's okay. It's not gonna predispose you to anything else down the line. And I think from what I'm hearing, you agree.

Joe Gambino (26:31.932)
I think to your point, think if I remember correctly, someone will have to fact check this, but I think why we sleep the book said the room should be 67 degrees. So definitely on the cooler side, help you sleep, things like that. So keep that in mind. And I guess as a quick recap before you can take us home, Joy Boy, sleep quality matters. I think if you're feeling groggy, tired, you have pain, know, you're sleeping.

Joe LaVa (26:41.504)
Something like that, yeah.

Joe Gambino (26:58.416)
It's just an issue for you trying to find ways to be consistent or try to find little tips on how to sleep better, have better quality sleep and go a long way for feeling better cognitive function, a whole lot of things. And then if you do have pain, you there's nothing, you can't sleep wrong, right? There's no positions that are rumble pain. The way I like to think about it is pain changes things. When you have pain and now a position becomes painful, then it's okay to then avoid it, but we're not going to blame the position for

Joe LaVa (27:23.06)
Mm-hmm.

Joe Gambino (27:28.026)
why you have pain, we can blame the pain for why you can't be in those positions in a sense. So almost I think if we reframe it, and I think the reason why it's important is because we don't want to demonize positions because when you feel better, right, you don't want to be like, well now that I feel better, I can't do X, Y or Z because my pain is going to come back. That's not like a true correlation. You know, if you've done that good enough rehab and you're feeling good, laying on your stomach likely again won't cause pain, right?

Joe LaVa (27:34.997)
Well put.

Joe Gambino (27:57.126)
But if your pain starts to come back and sleeping on your stomach might become painful again and try not to make this like cause and effect relationship, I think is important because once we start demonizing positions like squatting or dead lifting or sitting or whatever it is, then it becomes fearful. Then we try to avoid it. And those positions become even harder for you to tolerate. And then it's like this little vicious cycle. So if we can reframe it, work on the things that we need to work on, all those other things should kind of fall into place.

You get out of pain, you can go back to doing those things and that's it.

Joe LaVa (28:29.898)
There we go. I couldn't have said it better. I very liked your summary there, my friend. So I don't have anything else to contribute. Maybe we can do a sleeping habits episode as a follow-up, just to give people a couple more tangible things to work on. Because I know there is a list that we can give people of maybe like five to 10 habits. We already touched on a couple of them. But then that way it's a resource. And I think that'd serve as a good follow-up.

Joe Gambino (28:50.874)
Yeah.

Joe Gambino (28:57.574)
Yeah, I like that.

Joe LaVa (28:58.164)
Maybe that'll be our next episode or in a future episode if anyone's interested in diving into that topic a little bit more. any closing other thoughts or remarks, Mr. Gambino.

Joe Gambino (29:08.899)
I do not have any. can take us home.

Joe LaVa (29:10.848)
All right. Well, everyone, it was good to be back. Joe, I love you. Happy 2025. Looking forward to this year. Listeners, we love you. Thank you for following along with us on this journey. And there's lots more to come. And be sure to tune in for another episode of the Beyond Pain podcast next week.