The most common cause of neck pain (and disturbed nights), is “prolonged abnormal posture during sleep”. A soft filled pillow that quickly loses its shape fails to offer the level of support required to relax the heads support system of neck muscles and ligaments. Instead, these structures are left unsupported and cause neck strain.
Maintaining good spinal posture, especially when sleeping, is one key ingredient to ensuring good spinal health.
Contoured pillows are specially shaped to provide support for the neck and head whilst sleeping. This is particularly important when having Physiotherapy as it helps to support your care and enhance recovery.
Common symptoms due to a poor quality pillow include:
headaches/migraine, neck pain, grinding noises on movement, pins and needles and numbness or pain in the arms and/or fingers
Advice for a goods nights sleep on your new pillow
- Like a new pair of shoes, your new pillow needs to be worn in.
- Use your pillow at the beginning of each night.
- If you experience any discomfort, change to your old pillow.
- Continue to do this until your neck posture alters enough allowing continual use – in some cases this can take up to 2 weeks.
