What are the negative effects of sleeping without a pillow?
Answers
Bad posture
Not using the pillow when you sleep on your stomach can better align your spine. However, it won’t totally throw off the unnatural position. As most of your weight is in the center of your body, your spine will have difficulty staying neutral.
Put a pillow under your stomach and pelvis to reach a better posture while sleeping on your stomach. This will pull up the middle of the body and reduce pressure on your spine, even if you ditch the pillow for your head.
In other sleep positions, not using a pillow is problematic. It places the spine in an abnormal posture and strains your muscles and joints. It’s ideal to use a pillow if you sleep on your back or side.
Neck pain
The connection between neck pain and sleeping without a pillow includes essential caveats. If you sleep on your stomach, not using the pad can help your neck be more natural. This does not make you stop turning your head. It causes pain by straining your joints and muscles.
For other sleeping positions, ditching the pillow can make everything worse or result in neck pain. That’s because your neck will be overextended when you’re sleeping on your back or side. And with the absence of a pillow, your neck will be in this position through the night. Plus, not using a pillow spreads pressure on the neck muscles, and as a result, you’ll probably have neck pain, headaches, and stiffness.
Have you ever woken up with neck and back pain? It’s like torture, mentally and physically! You’ve planned to wake up with a fully charged battery and create a productive day, but instead, you have to suffer from neck pain all day long and deal with your grumpy mood. You might have thought of hundred things to do to prevent this from happening, such as sleeping without a pillow.
Let me tell you a few facts about pillows and why not using pads might not be a good idea.
Pillows are specifically designed to keep your spines in a neutral position. Choosing a suitable and standard pillow can have unbelievable effects on improving your spinal posture.
If you’re one of the stomach sleepers, using very high and puffy pillows could situate your neck in an inappropriate position, put extra pressure on it, and causes neck pain. In this case, sleeping without a pillow helps you keep your spine in a better position, but still, it’s recommended to use flat pillows.
Sleep without a pillow is harmful to your spine and neck vertebrae in any other sleep postures. When you sleep on your back or side without any pillow, you’re gifting yourself neck vertebrae damage, awful neck pain the following day, and a cervical disk in the long term! Is it worth it?
Do not skip pillows to avoid overextending the neck and better sleep posture. There’s no scientific proof that shows sleeping without a pillow could cure neck pain. It doesn’t! It’ll destroy your spine!
So it doesn’t matter whether you’re a stomach or back sleeper; using a pillow is better than not using it, so instead of skipping pillows, focus on choosing the right pillow and mattress.
Pillows will keep your head adjusted with the neck and backbone. If your neck is not adjusted well, this causes sleep loss. If you sleep on your side or back, sleeping without a pillow will put pressure on your neck. If you sleep on your side, choosing a firm pillow with extra depth to support the head and help cover the distance between the ear and the shoulder is better. The quality of sleeping changes if you sleep without a pillow!
Your spine might twist into and remain at an incorrect angle without a pillow. This misalignment while you are sleep, can cause many aches and pains. You require a good cushion for proper neck support. Without one, you end up with an aching neck and stiff, painful shoulders. You can even toss and turn and have your sleep cycle broken. It can also intervene with your blood circulation. Not only should your pillow support your head, but it must guard your neck and assist in keeping your spine aligned straight.
When we say “right pillow,” we do not mean the same for everyone.
Are you a stomach sleeper? A side-sleeper? Or a back sleeper?
How you sleep will define the right pillow. The height of your shoulder and other parameters are very individual to a person and are all related to choosing the right pillow.
A quick side note here:
If you have an excellent mattress to your rescue, you may ditch the pillow for the back sleeper. In such a case, sleeping with a pillow might strain your neck and deform your sleep.
