Should you sleep with or without a pillow? Know the benefits
Sleeping is a recovery period for your body where it starts fixing your Circadian rhythm and relaxes your muscles. Primarily it benefits your body physiology and keeps your mind healthy. However, sleep often gets interrupted when you have neck or body pain around the shoulders giving your spine alignment issues. As a result, some health experts and yoga coaches started advising “Sleep without a pillow to reduce neck pain”. Let’s explore how much truth there is in this statement or if it’s just a fallacy of the fitness industry.
No matter whether it’s true or not, some people are going to try to sleep without a pillow. However, some might like the feeling of sleeping without a pillow and experiencing relief from neck pain. Others who don’t experience neck pain while using a pillow will hardly find any difference after sleeping without a pillow. So, take some notes because sleeping with or without a pillow depends on the posture of your spine. While there are a few benefits of sleeping without a pillow, there are some downsides as well. As a result, it becomes more of a personal preference rather than an important tip to follow.
What people experience neck pain by sleeping without a pillow?
People associate sleep with comfort where the body should be relaxed and laid on soft and fluffy surfaces e.g. mattress and pillows. However, that’s not the case because after sleeping on the soft surfaces they tend to experience:-
Poor postures
Spine alignment
Joint soreness
Poor sleep
Neck pain
If you are also suffering from any of such problems then you need to reevaluate your sleep by taking important tips about losing your pillow or choosing the right mattress for deep sleep.
“Sleeping without a pillow helps to maintain the right body posture” Most people expect to see themselves in such statements but there is enough proof to support that pillows help to keep your spine in a neutral position as it helps to align your neck with the body giving your spine a good arch on the waist. However, some people who sleep on their stomach often see some of the great benefits from removing the pillow from the head. It might benefit people who sleep on the stomach because sleeping on the stomach puts your body in an unnatural position by placing a majority of the body weight on the stomach and adds stress to the spine. It essentially makes your spine turn upward instead of the downward curve which is a natural curve. By sleeping without a pillow you can easily keep your head flat as it reduces the stress on your stomach and back. However, it naturally promotes alignment giving you a better sense of sleep without any waking up body ache.
There are some circumstances in which your body responds to the temporary fixes e.g. removing the pillow from the head might alleviate neck pain naturally. Most people often complain about neck pain without evaluating their sleeping habits. Stomach sleepers always put the most amount of pressure on their stomach and when their head is turned to the side it extends your neck backwards which results in an uncomfortable position causing strain on the neck. Within such a posture it is obvious to have a stiff neck after waking up but you can actually treat neck pain and stiffness by just removing the pillow from under the head and using a simple towel or trying to sleep on the back. However, the research on this subject is very limited which makes it difficult to use it as a primary guideline for posture correction or even treating neck pain naturally.
There’s a common belief that ditching the pillow while sleeping could prevent hair fall. However, such claims haven’t been clinically proven or researched well. As a result, people often blame the pillow for receding hairline or frequent hair fall. This varied course of discussion comes from a common cause of hair dryness which is cotton pillow covers drastically absorb natural oil from the hair follicles making it dry and rough. Therefore, people always tend to choose their pillow covers wisely to avoid such problems.
Top 5 Benefits of not using a pillow while sleeping
While discussing some of the best ways to increase the sleep period, many people pointed out that pillows and mattresses play a crucial role in making them fall asleep and respond to a deep sleep ratio. This is a person-to-person choice but truly impacts the sleep cycle. So, here are some benefits of not using a pillow while sleeping:-
The pillows add an unnatural curve to your neck leading to neck pain. This is a common problem that drastically affects your spinal curve leading to body pain. Therefore, it is recommended not to use pillows for neck support while sleeping. As a result, you will notice neck pain will slowly become unnoticeable. These are some of the most noticeable changes that caught everyone’s attention.
The unnatural support of pillows to our neck often leads to back pain that we experience after our sleep. This could lead to severe headaches as well as back pain. However, there are many solutions like headrest pillows and foam memory pillows promising better solutions to neck pain. However, people often seek better alternatives rather than changing their habits. As a result, they often get scammed in the name of solutions.
People might have misunderstood the concept of head raises in the bed. As a result, they often feel headaches or migraine symptoms leading to a distressing situation. This is due to blood restriction in the head leading to headache and swelling. Therefore, it is recommended to sleep without a pillow leading to a better sleep cycle without any headache. This frequent migraine is due to the restriction of oxygen supply to your brain leading to inflammation.
Stress and insomnia are the leading causes of depression which is quite common in people of all ages. As a result, fixing your sleep cycle and having a deep sleep is equally important as having food for the body. However, sleep can be the body’s best friend in many ways, so it becomes a necessity to take a deep sleep in a minimum time span of 6-7 hours. This is the minimum time limit. However, finding numerous ways to reduce symptoms of stress can be exhausting and for how long are you planning to take antidepressant medications? These are some common questions that every patient asks. But there’s a common solution that we often ignore, which is fixing our posture and removing pillows from the bed.
Facial acne is a common problem that everyone struggles with. However there are several reasons for getting acne but people who sleep on the stomach and place their face on the pillow may experience acne and blackheads quite frequently as compared to someone who sleeps on their back. This difference can truly identify the problems which are causing facial acne in the first place which is dust oil and other impurities that have collected on the pillow while sleeping on the stomach side people place their face on one side exposing their facial layer to several facial problems. However, there is a simple solution to solve problems. You have to eliminate the root cause of this problem which is the pillow used for resting your face.
Note down a few tips for beginners to start sleeping without a pillow
People who have slept with a pillow for most of their lives would gradually need to shift to a headrest for the initial period to ditch the softeners of the pillow. However, there are also some methods that you can use in your night protein to start sleeping without any pillow:-
1. Slowly start reducing head support by removing the pillow and using foldable blankets or address for the initial week.
2. You can also start using flow as a support system to keep your core active while laying on the stomach side. This would change everything in terms of four stability as well as preventing neck pain.
3. A sleep mattress can be a great tool for deep sleep but also could be a counteractive part of having normal sleep. It places an equivalent role interesting your body and laying bouncy surfaces rather than on a plain one. So you need to figure out which one suits your body weight ratio flat one or muscle foam memory mattresses.
Conclusion
Sleep is one of the necessities that are important for having a healthy lifestyle but now your sleep cycle is being dictated by the environment rather than your body resulting in several unnecessary fallacies keeping you occupied on unnecessary terms. Therefore you need to think about your mental and physical well-being by completing your average six to seven hours of sleep by removing your pillow and choosing the right mattress.