Therapeutic Pillow for Neck Pain: Wake Up without Stiffness
A therapeutic pillow for neck pain is a special type of pillow designed specifically to help you release tension in your neck caused by long hours of screen time and poor daily posture. If you've been experiencing neck pain for a long time or even if it just came up recently, in this article, we'll explain the most common causes of neck pain and how a therapeutic pillow can help ease your pain before it gets worse.
This way, you can enjoy deep and restorative sleep at night without being bothered by that heavy tension behind your neck. Moreover, you wake up in the morning feeling energized and ready for the day instead of keep twisting your head and rubbing your shoulders hoping that pain will magically disappear.
What Causes Neck Pain?
In order to fix a problem, we have to know the root cause of it. The most common causes of neck pain are coming from poor daily posture. Whether you're sitting, standing or walking, if your head, neck and spine are not in perfect alignment with each other, tension will slowly build up and eventually cause you to feel pain.
Nowadays, neck pain becomes even more common and is spreading across different generations because of the widespread use of electronic devices. While using electronic devices, our body tends to fall into awkward positions, which places tension on our neck. For example, slouching over your computer or looking down on your phone or iPad. These positions force your neck muscles to tense up to hold your head in place. Imagine you're holding something around 10 to 12 pounds (average adults' head) for hours. Now you know exactly why your neck is screaming at you for help day and night.
But the worst thing is most people usually ignore all the signs their necks give them. They often tell themselves that it'll go away soon, except that it won't. This is why based on statistics, 70% of people experience neck pain at least one time in their life, but 40% of those cases turn into a chronic condition. Your body doesn't tell you something repeatedly for no reason. So, it's important to listen to your body and start treating the problem before it's too late.
How a Therapeutic Pillow for Neck Pain Can Help?
A therapeutic pillow for neck pain allows your body to fall back to its natural alignment the moment you sleep on it at night. This helps your neck muscles slowly release all the tension built up during the day, enabling you to sleep better, deeper and wake up feeling refreshed instead of in pain or with that nagging tension in the back of your neck.
What is natural alignment? A natural alignment of our body is when you're standing upright with back straight and head looking forward. Now, if you look at yourself from the side, you'll notice that your head is directly on top of your neck and your neck is on top of your spine. More importantly, that C-shaped curve in the back of your neck must be visible at all times. It doesn't matter what position you're in, if this natural alignment of your body is not maintained, neck pain will come to haunt you sooner or later.
That is the reason why most pillows for neck pain come with a neck roll or a wedge extension to help support that curve in the back of your neck so it doesn't get flattened out while you sleep. This is a feature most regular pillows don't have. Also, therapeutic pillows come with a cavity center, where they gently cradle your head and allow your head to sit a little bit lower than your neck to keep your body in line with each other. On the other hand, traditional pillows push your head forward, straining your neck while sleeping.
Therapeutic Pillows Support Side Sleepers
If you've been sleeping on your side before, have you noticed that your pillow can't provide enough support for your head, causing your head to drop? This is the reason why you find yourself folding your pillow in half or placing your hand underneath it just to lift your head up a bit.
A therapeutic pillow for neck pain comes with two raised sides, designed specifically for side sleepers. They're firm enough to keep your head in line with your neck and your spine, preventing your head from dropping while you sleep. This helps your body relax and sleep more comfortably and avoids neck strain the next morning.
With a therapeutic pillow for neck pain, whether you sleep on your side or your back, it still finds its way to help you maintain that perfect alignment throughout the night so you can enjoy uninterrupted rest and wake up pain-free.
Give Your Body Time to Adjust
A therapeutic pillow is a great solution to help you relieve tech neck tension and prevent morning neck pain, but if you're a first time user, please allow your body some time to adjust to the new support.
Since your body has already gotten used to the wrong support, it expects that tension every night and doesn't yet know how to let go and relax. That's why when you first start to use a neck support pillow, you're going to feel weird at first and this is completely normal. Don't force yourself into it, but give your body time to slowly ease itself into it. Before you know it, you'll probably be enjoying deep and comfortable sleep with some sweet dreams. You can also use your old and new pillow interchangeably at first to help your body adapt.
Once your body gets used to the proper alignment, you won't ever want to go back to the old support, where you keep waking up at night and greet neck pain first thing in the morning. Sleeping on a therapeutic pillow for neck pain allows your neck muscles to fully relax, helping your body recover better. In addition, since your muscles are no longer working overnight, you enjoy deeper and longer sleep. Finally, neck pain stops showing up in your mornings and bothering you throughout the day. In return, you wake up every day refreshed and revitalized.