The Pillow and the Mattress

Our little pillow is the front line defense for a good night sleep. The wrong pillow can lead to insomnia, neck pain, shoulder pain, headaches, restless sleep, improper spin alignment, and many many more sleeping woes. I'll share a story with you that sums up the importance of a good pillow.

I was working with a lady who contacted me about some shoulder pain she was having.  She was convinced that her new mattress was the cause and was ready to bring it back. I asked her a few questions, one of them being "did you purchase anything else with the mattress?" She informed me that she received free pillows with her mattress. I'm all for getting things for free but when it comes to sleep wellness, you can keep it. I wasn't 100% sure that the pillows were the problem but the more info I got from her, I was sure it wasn't her mattress. I asked her a few more questions about how she sleeps. What we discovered was that she sleeps on her stomach and was using a thick pillow. This was causing her neck to arch back and strain the shoulder muscles. I got her on a flat, goose down pillow, this brought her body in line and relieved the pressure off her shoulders. I'm happy to say that after a few days she stopped having the pain and was back to waking up relaxed. 
 
 If your suffering from the ailments I discussed in the opening, try switching pillows. Keep in mind the way you sleep at night when shopping, remember that you want your body to align straight through. You'll run in to problems if you have one part of the body take on all the stress.
Here are a few simple points to follow.
1. If your a back sleeper, get a pillow 4 to 6 inches thick. Make sure it it offers good side to side support, you don't want your head rolling around all night.
2. Stomach sleepers work best with a nice flat pillow. As discussed before, anything with to much height will bring the neck up and cause pain down the shoulders and back.
3. Side sleepers should search for side sleeper pillows. These pillow come with a gap in the bottom front of the pillow.  The gap is used to slide your arm under to relieve pressure off your shoulder.
Pillows are easy to find, most bedding/furniture stores carry a wide range of pillows from goose down, latex, visco, contour, and down alternative. In most cases they have a mattress set up so you can lay down and determine what works best for you.  Take the proper time needed, lay down and dig into that pillow. If your still having problems or want some advise before you go shopping, just leave me a comment on the blog. Thanks, The Sleep Guru.