Pillow Talk
29/08/2022
Morning! How was your nights sleep? Considering the warm weather, it might have been a bit less comfortable than normal. Sadly I can’t offer any advice on that topic. Pillows however, I might be able to help you there.
So let’s have some pillow talk this morning. “What’s the right pillow?” is a question we often receive. This is particularly the case when somebody is experiencing a stiff or sore neck in the morning or having disrupted sleep due to neck / shoulder / upper back pain, or headache. In my view the best pillow for you depends on two things:
1. Keeping your head and neck in a relatively mid-position
2. What feels comfortable for you
For the mid-position, the goal is to avoid the joints, ligaments, muscles, tendons and other soft tissues from resting in a more extreme position for a long period. A simple example would be sleeping on your side with a very thin and soft pillow or none at all. Essentially your head will rest down towards your shoulder, as if you were holding a phone to your ear. To maintain that position for a number of hours can become a strain, also known as tissue creep, on the previously mentioned tissues. Now, it would be highly unlikely for it to happen after one nights sleep, but repeated sleeps over time do increase the likelihood. Therefore, if you sleep on your side and you’re broad shouldered, you will need more or firmer pillow(s) to keep your head in the middle position, less if you have a slim build.
When it comes to sleeping on our back, which I would find is less common than side-sleeping, we pay attention to the difference in distance between the back of the head and the curve of the upper back. This is the space you want to fill. For example, if you have an increased curve in your upper back, which is very normal, then the distance to the back of your head, when you lie on your back, will be greater than somebody who’s upper back curve is flat. The right amount of pillow(s) will prevent your head from being in a fallen back position or moving your head forward towards your chest.
For those of you who may sleep on your stomach, unfortunately there is no pillow advice I can offer, but I would encourage you to try to re-learn how to sleep on your side or back. Sleeping on your stomach often means your head turned towards the extreme to one side or the other. For long periods of the night over time, this could contribute to neck, shoulder and upper back issues.
With regards to comfort, I suppose it’s self explanatory. Some people find a firmer pillow more appealing, while others like the pillow soft, and then there’s the goldilocks zone of it being in-between.
The final thing to add, is that while getting the right pillow set-up for you is very important, it is rarely a panacea to disrupted sleep or morning symptoms, due to the neck/shoulder/upper back. To maintain good health our body needs regular physical activity and ideally concentrated periods of exercise, a balanced diet of course, stress and emotional upset limited as possible and meaningful activities / relationships / social interactions, to name but a few. Hopefully though this pillow talk will be of help to you now and in the future.
Happy sleeping and take care for now.
Lonán Hughes
Chartered Physiotherapist