Every person has different sleeping habits and therefore our bedroom should also be adapted to our personal preferences. Some don’t care what type of pillow they use, some need much more than just one pillow and still others claim that it is healthier to sleep without a pillow at all.
Is sleeping without a pillow healthy or does it negatively affect our health? We'll tell you in which positions a pillow is unnecessary and when it’s best to sleep with a pillow.
Why do we sleep with a pillow?
For the majority of people, their pillow is part of the basic and essential equipment of the bed. Pillows increase our sleep comfort by ensuring that our head doesn’t lie too low while we sleep. Before buying a new pillow, we should take which pillow size is best for which type of sleep into account. This is due to the fact that the requirements that a pillow must meet depend on the position we sleep in.
Your pillow is designed to strengthen your neck at night and keep the spine straight. It must fill the space between the neck and the mattress as well as possible in order to prevent your head from tilting up or down.
Sleeping every night with a pillow that is not the right size for our particular sleeping position leads to tension building up in the muscles the next day. This in turn can lead to neck pain, back pain or even headaches. In order to wake up relaxed and refreshed, it’s essential to maintain good posture while we sleep. But what about people who sleep without a pillow?
Is it unhealthy to sleep without a pillow?
For most sleep positions, sleeping with a pillow is beneficial because it relaxes the neck and keeps our body in a straight position. However, sleeping without a pillow is actually good for people who prefer to sleep in the prone position. Although lying on the stomach is considered to be the least healthy sleep position, our sleeping without a pillow can improve our posture.
When we sleep on our stomach, we turn our head either to the right or to the left, which strains the natural curvature of the spine. Sleeping on a thick pillow not only over-rotates our spine, but also puts our neck in an unnatural position. This can cause pain or discomfort the next morning.
Sleeping without a pillow also has benefits for people who sleep mainly on their backs, but only if they sleep on a mattress that is not too hard. When you sleep on a soft mattress, the body sinks into the mattress, thereby closing the gap between the neck and the bed and allowing the shoulder area to lie flat. If you sleep on a firm mattress, you should use a pillow to protect your neck and relieve pressure from the vertebrae.
What kind of problems happen if we sleep without a pillow?
Sleeping without a pillow as side or back sleepers puts strain on the muscles at the back of the neck because the head is not aligned with the rest of the body. This leads to an unhealthy posture during the several hours we spend asleep and can trigger a number of problems. To improve our sleep quality and prevent cervical spinal issues, we should ensure that we’re maintaining good posture at night.
Back sleepers run the risk that their head will bend backwards excessively, which can cause blood to flow towards the head. This increases pressure on the head, which can cause a headache and roaring or whistling sensation. In addition, some back sleepers suffer from dizziness at night when they sleep without a pillow.
Side sleepers have an even higher risk of tension and neck pain because the space between the neck and the mattress is larger than it is for stomach or back sleepers. This overstretches the muscles in the neck area and leaves the spine in a compromised position. To prevent this, special side sleeper or neck support pillows have been developed. The latter is slightly higher at the bottom to support the vertebrae and prevent tension from building up.
Is it better to sleep with or without a pillow?
If you prefer to sleep on your side, this question is easy to answer: sleeping with a pillow is better for you. Even if you sleep on a soft mattress, your body will not sink low enough to lie flat. How tall the pillow should be depends on how firm your mattress is. The firmer the mattress, the greater the distance between the neck and the bed.
If you’re a back sleeper, you can try sleeping without a pillow if you have the right mattress. If your mattress is soft, your shoulders can sink into it and remain at the same level as your pelvis. This supports the curvature of your spine. If your mattress is hard, you should use a flat pillow in order to relieve pressure from your spine. A pillow that is too thick or high can cause pain if you sleep in the supine position, as it pushes the head too far forward.
The only position where we don’t need a pillow is while in the prone position. However, we should avoid spending several hours lying on our stomach if possible, as it’s not good for the back and neck. If you fall asleep on your stomach, you can breathe better without a pillow; your neck also lies flat on the bed and isn’t pushed upwards.
Should you sleep with or without a pillow for neck pain?
Neck pain is caused by sleeping in unhealthy posture at night, which leads to overstretched muscles or vertebrae which are excessively rotated. Therefore, try to keep your spine in its natural shape. If you suffer from neck pain, it’s best to sleep with a pillow, except if you’re a belly sleeper. However, a pillow that is too high or thick can also be unhealthy, so you should choose your pillow based on your preferred sleeping position.
Pillows at Zizzz for a good night’s sleep
At Zizzz, we offer high-quality pillows with two different types of filling: European down pillows and wool pillows. The filling in our down pillows is 85% feathers and 15% down, which comes from ethically sourced geese and ducks that are DownPass certified. This means that our geese and ducks come from farms which don't practise live plucking or force feeding.
Our wool pillows are filled with virgin wool from happy sheep raised in the beautiful Swiss Alps. This wool is reinforced with plant fibres to make it machine washable. You can adjust the pillows to meet your preference by removing or adding Swisswool balls. The cover of our Swisswool pillows is made with soft organic cotton and is pleasantly soft on the skin. You can also find the wool filling in our children's pillows, which are also filled with Swisswool.
Conclusion - Sleeping without a pillow
Neck or back pain can be caused by the wrong pillow, but in most positions it is better to sleep with a pillow. It does the job of putting our body in a straight position and supporting our head. The prone position is the only position where it’s best not to sleep with a pillow, but back and side sleepers should use one.
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