23rd Apr 2019

Pillow or No Pillow - What Is Healthier for Your Sleep?

Getting good quality sleep is crucial for our health, physical and emotional strength and beauty. During sleep, all our body systems rest. It’s the time for body tissues to regenerate and for the mind to get relief from the emotional strain it goes through during the day. The way we arrange our sleeping accommodation plays an important role in the quality of sleep we get.

Everything matters - the mattress, the temperature, the bedding materials. There are lots of studies researching sleep and factors that influence it. It is proven that a poor choice of the pillow can give you wrinkles and pain in the cervical spine. There are even special anti-wrinkle pillows but their efficiency has no scientific proof so far.

Passions over pillows

The worst way to place your head during sleep is to lay it on a high soft pillow. This may make you think of sleeping without any pillow at all. This idea seems logically sound like a radical alternative to big soft pillows. Perhaps everyone slept without a pillow at least once in their lives, but what if you make it a habit?

Some people think that it’s a more comfortable way to sleep. But an individual feeling of comfort isn’t the only thing that should be taken into consideration. Is sleeping without a pillow healthy? Can everyone do it? Are there any risks? Let’s find out!

What happens when you sleep without a pillow

Here is what happens to your body when you sleep without a pillow. The head is bent low to the mattress. Your legs lay slightly higher. This directs the blood flow right to your head. It can activate the work of your brain for a short time. But is it really what you need if your goal is to let it rest?

Very soon, people who reject sleeping pillows notice certain changes in the way they feel after such sleep. These changes can hardly be called pleasant and include the following symptoms:

• Night cough
• Neck pain
• Discomfort during contact with the bed surface and the temple
• Poor sleep quality

The long-lasting increased blood flow in your head causes the unpleasant pulsing that will result in the feeling of discomfort. Why does the cough appear? An improper neck position also causes the saliva to get into the upper airways. Your body is smart enough to understand this fluid shouldn’t be there, even if you are asleep. It tries to remove it with a reflex of coughing.

What about the neck pain? If you sleep with no pillow, the only thing that supports your neck is your muscles. To achieve the best sleep, they should be relaxed. If they work throughout the entire night, no wonder you wake up tired and your neck hurts.

If your body is deprived of proper sleep for an extended period of time, you will have to deal with chronic fatigue and will become less productive in various spheres of your life. By the way, you can’t compensate the pillow’s absence by supporting your head with your hands. It will only make things worse - your hands can get numb during the night.

What happens to your face without a pillow

Although the influence of pillows on the aging of your skin remains unclear, there are things that will happen to your face if you sleep without a pillow. These are:

• Swollen eyelids and dark circles because of improper blood circulation
• You may have fold marks on your face from sleeping on a rumpled bedding
• Lack of proper sleep makes people look tired and contributes to early skin aging

Remember that no beauty procedures will be effective if you don’t get enough quality sleep each night.

Is it bad for everyone?

There is only one group of people who should sleep without a pillow. These are babies in their first year of life. Their forming body doesn’t require any support for the head during sleep. They need to sleep on a hard even surface to develop a healthy spine and strong spinal muscles.

As the baby reaches the age of 6 months, a simple nappy folded several times can make a comfortable pillow substitute. Only after your child celebrates his or her first birthday, should you purchase a special pillow for them with orthopedic qualities.

There can also be an exclusion made for people who sleep without a pillow for their entire life. Their body is already adjusted to such kind of sleep. Adding a pillow can provoke problems with sleep, so it’s better to leave it as it is.

This works in both directions - if you sleep with a pillow throughout the entire life, its absence will do you no good. Even if you sleep on the floor (as some experts recommend people with spinal issues to do), your head should rest on the pillow. Comfortable and anatomically correct sleep is very important, and a good pillow will serve you a good service in achieving this goal.