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Even if you have regular sleeping habits, that still doesn’t make you immune to a sleeping disorder. This is because your sleep setup also plays a major role in ensuring sleep quality.
Muscle strain, stiff neck and neck pain happen to be the most common causes of sleep loss and, in extreme conditions, even chronic sleep deprivation. Fortunately, there’s a simple way to get rid of this problem, regardless of what sleep position you prefer.
Neck pain is no joke, and while it may present itself as only a minor inconvenience at first, if you don’t use the right neck support pillows, this can quickly graduate to more chronic neck pain. You may even need to get a cervical pillow if you sleep in a position that puts your spinal alignment off.
Before getting into the neck pillow benefits, let’s take a look at what a cervical pillow is.
What Are Cervical Pillows?
Neck pillows, or cervical pillows, are a type of pillow specially designed for the upper body, particularly the neck region. Not to be confused with your standard pillows or regular bed pillows, neck support pillows help ensure your spine and neck muscles remain in a natural position during sleep.
Common sleeping positions can put the backbone at an awkward angle. This poor posture may end up getting you an unwanted visit to your physical therapist. A good cervical neck pillow uses its ergonomic shape and design to put your neck in a comfortable position, thereby improving your quality of sleep.
Thanks to the extra supportive structure and make of these cervical pillow materials, your head is centered in a position that favors easier relaxation and breathing during sleep.
Are you wondering if all this is really worth giving up your fluffy pillows or firmer pillows for? We’ll highlight some perks of using neck pillows for back, side and stomach sleepers alike.
Neck Pillow Benefits
Getting a pillow for neck pain might seem like overkill, especially when the pain’s gone after a day or two. However, this pain may not always go away or it’ll persist until you start exploring chiropractic treatment options.
At this point, the neck pain won’t just affect your quality of sleep but also your quality of life. Before it comes to that, here are a few neck pillow benefits that might make you consider leaving traditional pillows in the past.
Neck Cricks No More
Even if you started the night in a natural position, you may bend into a more unnatural position sometime during sleep. This is especially true for combination sleepers. What’s more, when stomach sleepers use traditional pillows, their sleeping position can put at further risk of cricks.
That’s why they often prefer pillowless sleeping, but even pillowless sleeping isn’t without its risks.
One of the potential benefits of neck pillows is that they put your head and neck in the proper position when on a flat surface, regardless of sleep style. They facilitate head-spine alignment during sleep. What this results in is you wake up in the morning feeling rested, fresh and free of sharp pains in the side of your neck.
It Improves Spinal Alignment
Neck pains are often a result of shoving your head in unnatural positions while you sleep. Ideally, you want your spine to extend in a long, straight line from your hips all the way to the base of your head. Body pillows alone can’t help you achieve this particular feat because they lack the head and neck support.
So, even if you have a compatible mattress that doesn’t dip anywhere, your sleep setup is incomplete without cervical memory foam pillows. The neck pillow is an ideal pillow for neck problems due to its strong effects on posture. It aligns your backbone during sleep, which means you can enjoy your snooze without having to be conscious of your sleeping position.
Cervical contour pillows minimize muscle and ligament strains and provide optimal pain relief for your neck, shoulders and back.
The Flipping Will Stop
We all do it.
Even with our best pillows, we have to wake up sometime during the night to flip over because the side of the pillow we were using just isn’t as comfortable as it was when we first laid our head on it.
Flipping places moves the filling from under your head straight under your neck. It’s a normal downside of most traditional pillows, and it’s actually easy to manage if you don’t mind a little sleep loss now and then.
However, if going to bed is hard enough as it is, the less trouble you have when you finally get settled in, the better. One of the benefits of pillows optimized for neck support is that you can use these without your head getting balanced at an awkward angle sometime during the night.
These adjustable pillows conform to the shape of your neck and give you the perfect amount of support.
Say Goodbye to Loud Snoring
This is one of those neck pillow benefits your partner may truly appreciate.
If you’re a loud snorer, then sleep apnea may be at the root of it. This sleep disorder has been known to cause chainsaw-like snoring and chronic sleep deprivation. Luckily, neck pillows can help you bring your snoring to less audible levels.
By placing the neck muscles involved in snoring at proper angles, neck support pillows improve your breathing during sleep. While it won’t eradicate the condition, removing your neck from that strange angle frees your airway and removes any blockage.
As back sleepers are especially prone to this, using memory foam pillows may prove invaluable to them.
It Can Help Make Allergies Less Troublesome
A staggering number of adults suffer from allergies each year.
What’s more, many of the triggers for these reactions are everywhere in the home – even the bedroom. Standard pillows, like your firm pillow or feather pillows, are great, but these pillows themselves – feather pillows, for example – can trigger allergic reactions or harbor substances that will.
Cervical pillow materials are often made from dense foam material. Consequently, they leave little room for allergens. In addition to this, they’re 100% hypoallergenic, making them some of the best pillows for acne-prone and sensitive skin.
The best part is that cleaning these is a breeze and as all you need to do is remove the outer covering (like you would a pillowcase) and wash.
Bottom Line
There are a host of neck pillow benefits we didn’t even touch here.
It goes to show just what you stand to gain from using cervical pillows. Losing your firmer pillows may seem like a huge sacrifice, but ultimately a neck pillow remains the best choice for stomach sleepers, back sleepers and side sleepers.
