![\"Top](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/0_Top-View-Apartment-Bedroom-Handsome-Young-Man-Sleeping-Cozily-on-a-Bed-in-His-Bedroom-at-Night-Com.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nA doctor has warned that needing extra pillows to sleep could be an early warning sign of heart disease – and there are several other subtle cardiovascular health signs that are easily missed<\/p>\n
Having to sleep with an extra pillow at night could be a warning sign of a disease(Image: gorodenkoff via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
As we age, activities such as climbing a flight of stairs or lugging a bag of shopping from the supermarket to the car can become somewhat more challenging. But that slight breathlessness could be just one of a number of early warning signs of a serious health condition.<\/p>\n
Another, less obvious indicator of future health problems, according to Dr Alex Wibberley, is finding yourself more comfortable at night with an additional pillow on your bed. It might seem like a harmless minor shift in your habits, but it could actually signal the onset of a condition known as orthopnea.<\/p>\n
Orthopnea is a shortness of breath that you might notice when lying flat, but which disappears the moment you sit or stand up. Those affected may also experience a dry cough or wheezing while lying down that ceases when they sit up.<\/p>\n
Quite commonly, sleepers will resort to using an extra pillow at night to ease the symptom \u2013 yet all the while they’re ignoring the underlying cause.<\/p>\n
The condition, Alex explains on his Doctor Alex<\/a> YouTube channel, is one of several subtle warning signs of a future heart attack<\/a> that can frequently go undetected. All of them can ultimately be linked back to a stiffening of vital blood vessels that can place additional strain on the heart.<\/p>\n Warning signs can emerge 10 years before an actual heart attack(Image: Halfpoint Images via Getty Images)<\/p>\n When the heart is compelled to work harder, Alex explains, just like any other muscle it will “thicken” over time to cope with the pressure. However, while a more muscular heart will be able to squeeze forcefully enough to maintain normal blood flow, it will tend to struggle during the relaxation phase between beats.<\/p>\n This struggle is all-too-easily missed. Alex explains: “This doesn’t show up on a routine ECG,” he says, “it won’t be caught I a standard GP check. But it shows itself in daily life.”<\/p>\n He notes that the earliest indicators of cardiovascular disease are “pretty boring,” which is precisely why they’re so frequently overlooked. They can be mistaken for the effects of having had a hectic few days, or becoming slightly out of shape, or simply ageing.<\/p>\n “That is exactly what makes them dangerous,” Alex says. “Take tiredness for example… the unusual fatigue after climbing just one flight of stairs.”<\/p>\n He suggests that isn’t the sort of thing many people would comment on.<\/p>\n They’ll simply accept it as part and parcel of growing older.<\/p>\n As just one example, Alex says: “People start sleeping with an extra pillow without really consciously deciding to. They just find themselves more comfortable when they’re slightly upright.”<\/p>\n Fluid that has accumulated in your legs throughout the day will redistribute itself once you’ve been lying flat for a period of time. In particular, it will make its way to your chest and begin putting pressure on your lungs.<\/p>\n Alex adds: “In emergency departments, that is a big red flag for heart failure… in somebody’s house, it’s just an extra pillow, but to [emergency room doctors] that means something.”<\/p>\n It’s not about weight, Alex stresses, and even outwardly fit people can suffer(Image: SimpleImages via Getty Images)<\/p>\n The positive news about these early warning signs is that they present an opportunity to prevent a future heart attack. “This window for changing this trajectory is really big. It’s years wide” he continues.<\/p>\n Exercise and diet are dependable tools for restoring your heart health, with Alex continuing: “When you do sustained rhythmic movement \u2013 like walking briskly, or cycling, or swimming, or rowing, the increased blood-flow creates mechanical friction against the blood vessel wall.”<\/p>\n That friction, he explains, will stimulate the body to produce more nitric oxide, the essential molecule that combats vascular inflammation, and lowers blood pressure by relaxing and widening blood vessels.<\/p>\n “Studies have shown this happening within weeks, not months or years, of starting exercise, he adds. “The biology is more responsive than most people expect. ” Reducing your carbohydrate intake, too, will have a beneficial effect on your heart health, he says.<\/p>\n Along with monitoring your blood pressure, these are the straightforward, easy steps anyone can take to reduce the risk of serious heart disease.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A doctor has warned that needing extra pillows to sleep could be an early warning sign of heart…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":530557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[103,3274,61,60],"class_list":["post-530556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-health","tag-heart-disease","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=530556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/530557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=530556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=530556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=530556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Emergency](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/0_Patient-in-emergency-room-in-hospital.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Young](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/0_Young-business-woman-with-hands-on-chest-with-heart-attack-or-arrhythmia.jpg\")
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