When you hit the hay, you want to be sure that your head stays in the right place and you wake up feeling refreshed and revitalised.
How many of you can attest to the disappointment of waking up with a headache or a sore neck? Pillows are an essential part of our sleeping environment, yet few of us actually know much about what to look for when buying a pillow. What material is best in a pillow's construction and can we have more than one? Will my pillow withstand the same regular use as our All Blacks captain, or is it time for a sabbatical for that old chestnut?
The first thing that a pillow must provide is support of the natural spinal curves. A simple test is to stand up with good posture and then get someone to photograph you from the side. Now turn the camera on its side so that it looks like you are lying on your back. This is how you should look from the side when sleeping on your back. If your pillows are right, the head should stay very close to this neutral position of the neck. If you sleep on your side, once again the same holds true. If your pillow is too high or too low you will have your head on your shoulder either way and this isn't ideal. This is where you might need two.
One of the things that leads me to suspect pillows in part of a person's neck problem is waking repeatedly in the night, or waking up sorer than when you went to bed.
Evaluating your current pillow requires an non emotional objective state, because you may discover the one you use is unsuitable, and have to part ways. Be brave.
Place the pillow on the bed and with a clenched fist, punch the middle of the pillow gently. Watch the pillow, and if it bounces back taut, there is too much recoil in the pillow. It is better that the pillow can accommodate your head without fighting back with too much spring. Obviously if you have a foam, latex or memory pillow it will bounce back, so you want to make sure that the pillow fits your shape perfectly and isn't too big under your neck.
Run your hand across the sleeping surface, and feel for lumps. There should be none. The surface should be smooth. It shouldn't resemble the hill country of Whanganui River National Park, but I have seen pillows that look like this.
The next test requires a naked pillow. Take off the pillow slip. If it's decorated with drool flowers, you will have moisture in your pillow. Its probably less healthy if your pillow looks like a Monet impressionist knock off. You'll also see more lumps in the nude pillow. There really shouldn't be any.
So if you're in the market for a new pillow, what attributes should you be aware of?