06/12/2022
I'm going to give it a try! Thanks Dr Steven Lin!
Can sleeping without a pillow improve your sleep?
We all use pillows today, but it wasn’t always like that, and in a society that is constantly leaning forwards and suffering neck pain, is it affecting out sleep?
Today forward head posture increases our propensity to mouth breathe.
Poor posture, sleep, and breathing are all connected, and your pillow may contribute to neck, back, and shoulder pain.
Optimizing sleep should be on your goal list, if not now, then in the near future.
Personally, as a dentist, I spend a large proportion of my day leaning my head forward. The toll on my neck, and back have been considerable, and I noticed that it began to affect my sleep.
While working on nasal breathing, posture and flexibility, I found that sleeping without a pillow helped improve my neck and shoulder pain. It’s one of the many approaches I’ve used to help optimize my breathing during sleep, which many people suffer with.
In patients I see people who don’t sleep well all the time.
Interestingly the height of your pillow increase peak pressures in the cranial and neck regions, while increasing the extension (lordosis) of the spine).
Cranio-cervical pressures and cervical spine alignment were height-specific, and may impact breathing and hence quality of sleep.
A quantitative and objective evaluation of the effect of pillow height on the biomechanics of the head-neck complex with application in pillow design suggested that the higher the pillow, the worse the sleep.
As neck pain occurs in nearly a quarter of the population and cranio-cerivical pressure could contribute to neck pain and sleep associated headaches, which ultimately results in poor quality of sleep
Pillow height may affect comfort and sleeping quality, and was identified as one of the critical factors influencing spinal alignment. However, selecting the correct pillow height can be difficult.
While working towards nasal breathing and straight cervical spine posture during sleep, its worth trying
1) Sleeping with a lower pillow
2) Sleep with a rolled towel under your neck
3) Sleep with no pillow
Would you try sleeping without a pillow?