The most important step to choosing the right pillow

If you are one of the many people who are not sure where to start when selecting a pillow then please watch our quick video on what we think is THE most important step when making your choice. 

Let's face it, there are too many options for pillows out there. There are so many materials, shapes, and seemingly random options for you to choose and the hardest part for a lot of our clients is that nearly all of them seem incredibly expensive! 

Choosing the right pillow for you is very important but it shouldn't be something you lose sleep over. 

At Align we believe that there is one simple factor that you need to consider above all else before settling on a new pillow.

If you have any further questions after you have watched the video about choosing a pillow or how best to approach sleep to manage your issues (be it posture, neck pain, low back pain or headaches), please do not hesitate to contact us at Align. We have a select range of pillows on hand at any time that are available to you even if you have never been in before. 

Knowing how important sleep is to our community, we are always happy to offer a complimentary pillow fitting for you so that you can be confident that you are making the right choice. 

Watch our video below to hear what advice Drs Martin and Kieran start with for anyone who is considering an updated pillow. If you'd prefer not to watch, the clip has been transcribed below. 

Hi, Martin Harvey from Align Chiropractic here. 

One of the most common questions that we get asked in practice is: “What sort of pillow should I be sleeping with?”

We have people coming in who have entire collections of pillows, made out of everything from feathers, through to the latest space-age materials, and they wonder: 

“Why can't I find a pillow that’s comfortable for me?” 

The first thing that we always want to make sure is that the pillow is the right size and the right fit for you. 

Obviously some people are different sizes and there are also people who choose or are most comfortable in, different sleeping positions. 

Make sure you check out our “which sleeping positions should you be using” video as well, but if you’re somebody who predominantly sleeps on your side, then you're going to need a larger pillow. 

In side sleeping, the idea of the pillow would be to take up a significant amount of the space between your shoulder and your neck, so that it’s supporting your neck. 

If it is not, when you’re sleeping on your side and it's too low, your pillow is going to force you to tip over quite a bit that way, and at the same time if it's too big for you, it's going to tend to tip you the other way. 

If you're somebody who mainly sleeps on your back, then wanting to keep your head fairly balanced over your shoulder, you’re not going to want to big a pillow because a really big pillow is going to tend to force you forward quite a bit.

To that end, the type of pillow that typically is the best compromise if you're one of the many people who sleep a bit in both is a contoured pillow. 

The contour allows the thicker part of your head when you're lying on your back to be in the contour and it also supports your neck without forcing you too far forward. 

This is a low-profile pillow and this would be for somebody who primarily sleeps on their back or they're a smaller person who sleeps on their side.

If you're a bigger person who's a side sleeper, then you're going to want to go to a larger, higher profile pillow. 

You can see here that it's much thicker than the other pillow, again it's the same basic structure. 

So there you have it, a simple way of getting a bit of an idea of which pillow you should be using. 

The most important first thing is that it's less about the material that it’s made from these ones are made out of latex which is a really comfortable and durable material but the most important thing is to make sure you get the right size based on how big you are, as well as your preferred sleeping position.

Sleeping position: How should you sleep to avoid neck pain?

This post is for people wondering about the best position to sleep in, especially if they suffer from neck pain, upper back pain, neck tightness or forward head posture. 

How should you sleep to avoid neck pain?

We frequently get asked 'what the best position to sleep in?'.

Although this question has many answers depending on the specific needs of the person, we wanted to address what we see as one of the most common sources of issues for our clients, and that is to focus on head and neck position. 

The aim is to take the pressure off the structures supporting your head, as well as allowing your body to be as comfortable as possible throughout the night. 

We hope that you can get some insights from this short video to help your body work with you in your efforts to alleviate neck pain etc as well as improve your posture for the whole third of your life you are SUPPOSED to spend asleep.

As with all our videos, this one has been transcribed below.

Be sure to check back on this page next week when Martin explains how best to choose a pillow.

If you have further questions about making the most of your sleeping position, please do not hesitate to get in contact with us. 

Never underestimate the importance of good quality night of sleep!

Hi, it’s Martin and Kieran from Align Chiropractic and one of the most common questions that we get asked every day in practice is: “what position should I be sleeping in?” 

What I want to go over today is (in our opinion) the two best positions that we want to be in when we're asleep, and it's really very similar to what we're looking for when we're looking at your posture when you are standing up. 

What should your sleeping posture look like?

If we have a look at Kieran’s posture, what we're really looking for when we look at somebody’s posture from the front is when we look at head posture, does the head line up coming in the middle of their chest we don't want to see posture that's tipped over this way or twist it around or whatever. 

When we translate that to sleeping position, we’re trying to set up a sleeping pose so that our posture is in that ‘ideal’ position. 

Kieran, if you can turn side on, we want to see the same thing, because our bodies are in three dimensions we’re also looking to make sure that our posture is lined up from the side so that this big weight about our head is balanced over the big weight of our chest so we're looking for our ear over our shoulder to balance up, so again if we translate standing posture to lying down posture, that’s what we're looking for there. 

Sleeping on your back

So, what I’ll get you to do now Kieran, if you can lie down on your back for me and if we look at posture from the side here, we've got the right position here, lying on our back we've got a pillow set up properly.

What we're really looking for is that same thing where we've got that ear kind of balancing up over the shoulder. 

What about side sleepers?

Now if we can now turn into our side posture, what we're really looking for here again is, if we're looking at the middle of the face we're wanting that to be almost a straight line. 

We don't want it this pillow was too low, then it would allow his head to tip… well that's way over to the side but similarly if we had a higher, pillow it's going to lift that up too high. 

So we're looking for a straight line there, we want that lining up, kind of at the middle of the chest so that again, we’re keeping that perfect posture while we’re spending the seven and a half to eight hours in this position while we're in bed this way. 

I hope that video is useful gives you a bit of an idea that the two best positions for you to sleep in are either on your back or on your side, because it's really important to make sure that your spinal posture is in a great position while you're asleep.