Generally, parents always introduce pillows for their children to use while sleeping. Then we’ll get used to wearing them until we’ve becomes adult and do that too to our children. In Indonesia, the pillows are essential when we sleep. Some people also add bolsters and dolls to complete his sleep.
Have we asked ourselves why we do that? Most of us would probably answer: The main reason we use a pillow to keep the position of the head, neck and spine stays aligned and comfortable.
Is that right? When we walk upright, head and neck are in vertical alignment at the top of the spine, sustained by the muscles of the complex. However, During sleep the muscles that sustain us while walking in a relaxed state, causing head fall backward or forwards. This causes additional stress on the muscles of the neck and spine that may one day make the back muscles and spine rigid. That is why, when we sleep need pillows. The aim to lay your head and neck aligned with the spine.
However, Pillows makes pain to our neck if we choose it wrong. Anyway, is that true that we have to sleep with a pillow? What if the bed without a pillow? Research shows that there are many benefits that can be obtained by sleeping without a pillow.
There are several reasons why we are better to sleep without a pillow:
- The experts agree that sleeping on the bed without a pillow is more natural for the body. Thus, the quality of our sleep becomes more like when I was a baby because the body is in a natural and normal level. Without the pillow can return the wrong body position.
- The experts revealed that sleeping without a pillow made sleeping more quality, but with a record done in a mattress to sleep without a pillow. Where to sleep without a pillow done on the floor then our heads will become sick.
- Sleep without a pillow to make the body more comfortable. For more freshen our sleep, it is better to use the mattress rather hard. It keep your body over and remain on good posture.
- Sleeping without a pillow made firmer spine and neck bones we are not prone to sick.
- Sleeping without a pillow when combined with the supine position. So you can get two benefits at once, namely preventing neck pain and back pain.
Health Benefits of Sleep Without a Pillow
If we want to get the quality of sleep, It is better for us to not using pillows. Because it can disturb our sleep. Sleeping without a pillow will make a good quality sleep because your body position at the level of the natural and normal. As with younger infants are not accustomed to using a pillow.
Indeed, sleep without a pillow has many benefits. What are the benefits of sleeping without a pillow? Here are:
1. Prevents Acne
For beauty, sleep without a pillow to minimize and prevent acne. This is because during sleep with a pillow if we sleep sideways position, will face resting on a pillow.
Acne is often caused by a dirty pillowcase or rarely replaced, so a lot of dust and other impurities stick on the pillowcases. When attached to the face can accelerate the growth of acne.
2. Prevent Wrinkles on Face
Wrinkles occur because of pressure when we use a pillow to sleep on your side. Face attached to the pillow tends to wrinkle. People who do not use the pillow have a lower risk of developing wrinkles on the face.
3. Avoid Back Pain
When we sleep with a pillow thick backbone to change the location and we may experience back pain the next day. So, by not using a pillow to sleep is the best medicine for preventing and treating back pain.
Do not use the pillow to sleep is the method most healthy because it gives an advantage to a person’s spine. Sleep with the back to allow the spine to fully rest with the natural curve of the body in place.
Just enough to sleep without a pillow just routinely, it will slightly reduce soreness in the neck. This will cause the condition of the body and the bones are in the optimal position and as before, and can prevent the emergence of pain and pain in the neck on waking.
4. Prevent Neck Pain
Using a pillow to sleep is the main source of shoulder and neck sick. This is presumable because a lot of people who complain of pain in their neck race when sleeping and waking up the next morning. It is widely suspected because of the presence of the body’s nerve damage, wrong sleeping position, and condition of the sleep quality was not good.
5. Looks Younger
The main function of sleep is to restore our bodies are experiencing fatigue. The quality of our sleep affects our fitness level in the morning.
Sleeping without a pillow can make us much better in the morning. The effect makes us look more youthful. This is caused by many things that happen when we sleep without a pillow, among others:
- Without the pillow better sleep quality, so as we will wake up in the morning with a fresh condition.
- Prevent the appearance of wrinkles on the face.
6. Align Bone
Sleeping without a pillow is also believed to help straighten and also normalizes bone structure that we have.
Problems such as humpback effect on bone health medically. By sleeping without a pillow, then this can be minimized, so the body that has good structure cannot be overcome by sleep without a pillow.
7. Improve Sleep Quality
Sleeping without a pillow, according to research to improve the quality of one’s sleep. This means that without the pillow person will sleep more soundly.
This affects the quality of sleep in order to prevent problems when going to and during sleep, such as Insomnia, waking at midnight and Nightmares.
8. Prevent Stress
Sometimes, stress can also occur due to the wrong sleeping position. This can cause the quality of sleep we got so bad that can add to the burden of thought. Not the benefits of sleep we get, but otherwise.
Of course this will disturb us, so try to sleep without a pillow, because the effect is able to prevent the emergence of stress and pressure when the moment is sleeping.
9. Prevent Insomnia
Sleeping without a pillow can also help you to prevent insomnia and difficulty sleeping at night time. This is caused by the quality of sleep that becomes much better, and sleep quality began to feel more relaxed.
10. Able to Reduce and Prevent Back Pain in the Neck
Sleeping without a pillow can be a solution to who have a complaint with a sore neck. Special work in front of computers is certainly not a stranger anymore if you suffer from pain in the neck on the back. This is due to the fatigue factor and the factor that blood does not flow smoothly. Well, by sleeping without a pillow, will reduce the pain and will be fresher.
11. Feels Refresh and Fit
With the increase in the quality of sleep a person has, especially since sleep without a pillow, then it will be useful and influential in the condition of the body when you wake up in the morning. The body becomes fresher and fit when you wake up in the morning because the quality of sleep increases. For those who have complaints sore and tired after a sleepless night, maybe you can try to sleep without a pillow.
12. Enhance Creativity
If we sleep at night and fairly before leaving the house for work. Researchers at Harvard University and Boston College showed that during sleep, our emotional component of the memory has strengthened. This could help spur the creative level of a person. But this process will not happen if we poor sleep quality
13. Have a Healthy and Ideal Body
Thinking about dieting to lose weight? Researchers at the University of Chicago found good rest for people who diet, more experienced of fat loss up to 56% of body weight. In contrast, to those who lack sleep or have poor sleep quality will lose more muscle mass.
In the study also revealed that people who feel more hungry little sleep. Sleep and metabolism of the body is controlled by the same sector of the brain, so when sleepy, certain hormones in the body will rise in the blood.
14. Keep out of Depression
A Good sleep at night is not just to improve mood and reduce anger, but it is also significant for our overall well-being. If we have poor sleep quality, we will wake up in the morning the conditions were not good. This can lead to the level of our depression. The quality of night sleep may help people with depression and reduce anxiety. Our emotional level will be more stability if you get a good sleep.
15. Improve Memory
Our minds are very busy in conditions when awake. During sleep, we will experience consolidation process that will strengthen memory, and practice the skills learned while awake. If we try to learn something before bed, whether physical or mental, then will we practice during sleep. In other words, if we sleep well if the consolidation process undertaken by the memory can be carried out well. We will increase memory power.
16. Prevent Inflammation
Sleep with a pillow can cause a variety of complaints, such as insomnia and poor sleep quality. One study found that C-reactive protein, which is associated with risk of heart attack is higher in people who had a good night’s sleep 6 hours or less, people with or insomnia sleep apnea. Research shows that people who sleep less than six hours of sleep or less each night, has levels of inflammatory proteins in the blood are higher when compared to those had more sleep.
17. Helps Body Repair Damaged Cells
Sleep is the time to repair the damage caused by stress, ultraviolet light, and other harmful exposures. Cells in the body to produce more protein when sleeping. This protein is useful for repairing the devastation that occurs in the body. It is important for us to make sure we sleep in good condition, by sleeping without a pillow.
18. Reducing the Risk of Disease
Enough of sleep makes melatonin and cortisol hormone levels remain healthy. When healthy Cortisol he can block cancer-causing cell damage and various other diseases such as flu and colds. The hormone melatonin and cortisol will only be fulfilled if the quality of our sleep well.
Benefits Of Sleep Without a Pillow For Baby
19. Avoid Flat Head Syndrome
Parents should understand if the baby is sleeping too long to use a soft pillow, it would risk a change in the baby’s head shape is still soft. Conditions like these can change the shape of the baby’s head to be flat on one side, known as the flat head syndrome.
To avoid this condition, the better the baby was not given a pillow when sleeping. Is not it when the first newborn baby when sleep did not use the pillows?
20. Prevent Shortage Baby’s Breath
When the baby is asleep, objects like pillows were placed in a crib can make him uncomfortable and can cause accidents when the object is close windpipe. It is feared that the baby’s face was crushed or depressed pillow when the baby’s neck is not strong enough to reverse the face.
The U.S Consumer Product Safety Commission recommends that newborn babies up to 1 year of age should not use a pillow when sleeping. High incidence of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) in the United States makes some doctors recommend not using a pillow in children aged 2 years and under during sleep.
21. Avoiding Allergies
Infants are also more sensitive to dust, feathers, or other materials that become fixtures sleep. Materials that do not match the baby could increase the incidence of allergic reactions.
22. Avoid Overheating
Pillowcases can also cause problems. When pillowcases made of polyester hot, uncomfortable impact on the baby.
23. Prevent Sprain
When babies sleep in a long time, the pillow can cause a sprain in the neck. Indeed, this sort of thing will not happen if the pillow is designed very well, but most of the baby pillow are not designed in such a way.
Steps without Pillow, If You Want Leaving Pillow
If you are sure to leave your pillow, you do not rush to do it. Do it slowly and try to enjoy the process. The transition from using a pillow and decides to get used without pillows took quite. you can start with:
- Make a pillow substitute materials that you can reduce the size of thickness every day. You can use a folded towel or clothes as a pillow for the first few days. Began with replacement pillows that have the same height of your pillow before. Gradually, try to reduce the height of your pillow substitute materials.
- Reduce the size of the material continued to substitute your pillow until nothing left. Remember, do not rush. You can do this every week reduction.
- Make sure that your pillow substitute materials can keep the neck aligned with your head. Feel free to experiment to find out what works best for you.
- Perform stretching. When you lower the height of material replacement, make sure the rest of the substitutes can work on stretching the neck and shoulders.
- Make sure you are consistent in do it, do not switch back and forth as desired thickness only.
Good Sleeping Position
Basically, there is no fixed rule how one should be asleep. But there are some that must be considered:
- Make sure that the sleeping position you choose, make you feel relaxed and comfortable.
- When you sleep, try not to rest on other body parts.
- When you sleep, try using an eye patch. in addition, enables you to sleep, it also keeps your eyes.
- Try to sleep using a mattress that is not hard.
Our bodies are already used to sleeping with pillows and bolsters. But it turns out to achieve a better quality of sleep is recommended to sleep without a pillow. Regarding the position of a good sleep, although there are many variations but the sleeping position most comfortable position apparently is with the knees bent slightly up or slightly curled.
Lying is usually recommended for those who suffer from back pain or hip and for pregnant women because this position does not add to the pain in these areas earlier.
If you are comfortable with their backs to sleep, be careful because it can actually lead to lower back pain and sleep apnea. But you can make small changes that can sleep more comfortably. Try to put a soft pillow or rolled towel under your knees to give the natural curve of the spine.
And for those of you who like to sleep on his stomach, be prepared for bad news. Experts do not recommend sleeping with the belly down because it can cause strain on the lower back and neck pain. If you are still determined to sleep prone, use a very soft cushion or no disposable pillow so that the neck position is not depressed. Better still if you stop sleeping on his stomach because it is not a good sleeping position.
Whatever your choice during sleep, this article is just trying to show you how good sleep affects our health in the morning. So, specify using a pillow or not, sleep on your side or back, depending on your choice.