How Do I Sleep With a New Piercing? Essential Tips

If you’re healing ear piercings, figuring out how to sleep with new piercings without causing damage can be challenging. Many people ask, how do I sleep with a new piercing? In this guide, I’ll share three practical tips to minimize irritation and protect your piercings while you sleep.

Tie Up Your Hair for Healing Piercings

The first answer to how do I sleep with a new piercing is simple: tie up your hair if you have long hair. It’s crucial, especially when your ear is healing. This applies during the day, but I find it particularly helpful at night.

For people with straight hair, this might still be an issue. But for me, with wavy, curly, and frizzy hair that gets really tangled, it’s a serious problem. My hair gets wrapped around earring backs and all those little bits so easily. It’s irritating for your piercing in multiple ways.

First, there’s the physical snagging. When your hair wraps around the jewelry, it can catch and pull, which disrupts healing. Second, hair products are constantly in my hair. If I’m using leave-in conditioner or other styling products, that’s going to get on your piercing. You don’t want products touching your healing piercing.

Even if you don’t use products, your hair might just be dirty. You really don’t want dirty hair touching your new piercings.

When my hair is down, it’s really easy to lay on it and snag it on the earring. That’s usually how I catch my piercings during the night. To avoid snagging piercings while sleeping, keeping your hair tied up makes a huge difference.

I know tying up curly hair can be frustrating because it just gets angry and frizzy. Try to have your hair up if you’re healing ear piercings, especially while you’re sleeping — one of the most overlooked answers to how do I sleep with a new piercing.

Choose the Best Jewelry for Sleeping with Piercings

If you’ve ever wondered how do I sleep with a new piercing without irritation, my second tip is to wear flat back labret studs instead of hoop or butterfly back earrings. I find labret studs much more comfortable for sleeping because if I do end up leaning on them, it’s just a flat back pressing against my head rather than a ball or hoop.

Personally, that’s what works for me. It may be different for you.

I also find that having the right length jewelry for ear piercings is important. If the jewelry is too tight and you accidentally sleep on it, swelling can become a real problem. With a labret stud that has a couple of millimeters of extra length, you have a bit of room.

This way, you won’t wake up with a really painful swollen piercing from sleeping on it after leaning on it for a few hours without noticing.

On the other hand, if the jewelry is too long, you can end up catching it more when you’re sleeping. The longer post sticks out more, making it easier for the jewelry to catch on something. When it gets caught, it can be pushed in a certain direction, causing irritation.

I find that labret studs with a couple of millimeters of extra length—but nothing too much—work best for me in terms of what jewelry to sleep in.

This tip also works really well if you have lobe piercings. If you got your lobes pierced with a gun and have butterfly back earrings, they’re really uncomfortable to sleep in. The butterfly back can dig into your neck while you’re sleeping.

Hopefully, before you get pierced, you’ll see this advice and go somewhere that doesn’t use guns. You’ll get a nice flat back labret stud instead, and you won’t have that problem — a great solution for anyone asking how do I sleep with a new piercing comfortably.

Use a Piercing Pillow for Sleeping

I find piercing pillows really useful for making ear piercings less of a life-changing experience in a bad way. When I got seven piercings, I was like, “Oh, I didn’t really think about how I wasn’t going to be able to sleep on this side.”

A piercing pillow makes it easier to sleep on the side your piercing is on without actually hurting it. It’s the ultimate answer if you’ve been wondering how do I sleep with a new piercing safely.

Those are all my tips for sleeping with ear piercings.