We spend one-third of our lives sleeping,that's 7~9 hours every day on our beds. It is often the part of our day we look forward to the most, especially in the information overload internet age we live in. Nothing quite beats a complete shutdown and waking up refreshed from comfortable restful sleep.
However, fewer people are able to achieve quality sleep, while more and more people are experiencing back pain from sleep. Why is that? To be able to resolve this problem we must first understand what the real cause of back pain from sleeping is.
The posture is the culprit, not your sleep position
You would be surprised to know that majority of the population are side sleepers, while only 8% are traditional back sleepers. It's not hard to fathom, side sleeping is a naturally comfortingsleeping position;offering the type of security of fetal position without the stress on knees and lower spine. With the correct posture, side sleepers should also enjoy better blood circulation and less likeliness to snoring.
The importance of sleeping posture is often overlooked.
Visualize laying down on your sides as if to sleep–your hip, shoulder, and to a lesser degree, neck act as the 3 pillars for your body. The hip, additionally, serves as the hub to the legs' spoke. When your legs are properly supported between the upper and lower legs, they remain neutral to your hip.
So far so good.
Except, guess what part of the body do we often move when we sleep on our sides? You guessed it, our legs! Because it's not pinned down by any of the 3 pillars, there is nothing to prevent us from moving our legs as we search for the "ideal" sleeping posture.
You might:
- Stack your knees and legs
- Stack your knees and not your calves
- Have both legs complete apart.
See our Side Sleeper Knee Pillow to relieve sleeping back pain
However, each one of these leg postures can, in their own ways, cause geometric changes on your hip shifting it from a neutral, evenly supported state to one that's off-balanced. This drags the spine.
The pulling on the spine will make it contorted and throw off the balance of torso weight distribution on the bed; as a result, what was once a harmonious weight distribution turns into multiple concentrated pockets of body weights that commands individual back muscles to overwork in silos to offset. These muscles will wear out and become fatigued, and you wake up with severe soreness and back pain.
How can you optimize your sleep posture to prevent waking up with lower back pain?
The best solution is to use between the legs knee pillow.
By placing a knee pillow between your thighs as you lay your sides, you introduce stabilization to your legs and knees. It will alleviate the pressure from knee stacking as well as isolate the effect of leg movements to below the knee, decreasing the restless hunt for an ideal sleeping posture. By stabilizing the hip, it also releases the pull on your spine, prompting neutral and straight spine alignment. Your back muscles will be able to work in conjunction with various core muscles to evenly support your body weight, in optimal and pain-free fashion.
See our Roll Pillow for sleeping lumbar support
What other benefits does knee pillow bring?
In addition toback pain relief, the National Sleep Foundation suggests that by incorporating a knee pillow to your sleep routine you can also improve your sleep quality.
They state that the top reason for tossing and turning is due to the lack of proper support, explaining that tossing and turning is actually natural corrective reactions to muscle stiffness caused by lousy sleeping postures. They suggest that one of the easiest ways to improve your sleep and quality is by placing a knee pillow between your legs to achieve the outcome in the previous paragraph.
See our Side Sleeper Knee Pillow
From our customer survey, many have experienced a notable improvement in their sleep qualities. They shared that by having the pillow serve as stabilizing support for their legs; they no longer hunt for an optimal leg posture. Thus, they are able to relax faster and in turn, fall asleep faster.
Also, they also noted that the leg spacing also allowed their legs to feel cooler, removing another distraction from sleep. They feel like they were able to sleep deeper and wake up refreshed and productive. Some stated that it took them a night or two to get used to the pillow, but once they do, they forget that it's there and that the reward more than offsets the investment.
What to look for in a knee pillow?
Having established the importance of a knee pillow, we've narrowed down the 3 things to look for when you select the right knee pillow. You can also check ours, we didn't like the ones available on the market so we made anew and improved knee pillow.
See our Side Sleeper Knee Pillow
Material
The purpose of using a knee pillow is to enjoy consistent leg support through the length of the night, night after night. Only a denser memory foam would stand up to the daily abuse and offer much more desirable leg support without flattening out halfway through.
Select one that is 100% pure premium memory foam as many knock-off knee pillows look similar in shape but are made with highly questionable materials. We use a 100% proprietary premium memory foam made from German polyurethane, it's much denser than what's available in the market.
Shape
The shape should be ergonomic with a measured dimension for the thickness of the neck; it, along with the density of the memory foam will determine the leg spacing and support level. In our own lab test, we find that 3.5 inches pre-compression with our proprietary memory foam offers the most consistent and ideal support and spacing.
The width of the pillow should also be important. It is responsible for the balance between providing full-length support of the thigh while keeping a low profile and staying unobtrusive. We find 8.5 inches is the best length in our own product R&D.
The pillow should also have a nice cupping contour to hug the thighs when placed between the legs. This is especially important for first-time users to feel natural using the pillow.
Cover
This is a daily usage item that may or may not touch your skin, its cover should be breathable, removable, and washable.
We went one step further and made our highly breathable cover light grey on all areas that touch your skin with the front as the only white color panel with our logo. This is much more resistant to dirtying from daily usage. In the event you want to wash the cover, our cover is made with robust and large zippered opening for easy clean and care.
In Conclusion
If any of the events we outlined above sounds familiar to you, perhaps it's time to invest in aknee pillow and try it out for yourself. It's never too late to improve your sleep quality, you would be surprised what a difference a good night of sleep can do to your happiness.
Try it out, after all, sleep is only one-third of our lives right?
See our Side Sleeper Knee Pillow
See our Side Sleeper Knee Pillow
Please share with a friend or a loved one to help them find their sleeping comfort.
