Sleeping is an inevitable part of your routine. Side sleepers have difficulty supporting their sleep posture, hampers their sleep quality. For side sleepers, pillow cubes have recently trended on social media. This article will deal with pillow cubes and whether they are practical for side sleepers or better alternatives. So keep reading to the end.
What exactly is a Pillow Cube?
Side sleepers can mess up their spinal alignment if their head is not in line with their spine during sleeping. Proper alignment occurs when there is a right angle between your shoulders and head in that side sleeping posture. Because you have to maintain this posture during a six to eight-hour sleep, this factor is crucial for keeping your overall body posture. Pillow cubes are foam pillows that are cube-shaped to provide that right angle between your head and shoulders so that you do not have to worry about it at all.
How to Find the Best Size for You?
Many social media influencers and companies that manufacture these pillow cubes advise you to place your head on a stack of books in a side sleeping posture and use a ruler to find out the exact height of the pillow cube that will be comfortable for you. The standard sizes are 4, 5, and 6 inches in height, and these pillows are available in two lengths, namely 12 and 24 inches.
Is Pillow Cube a Good Idea?
Researchers sat down to try out this new trend for side sleepers, and it turned out that it might look good in advertising, but the pillow cube is not that effective. The prime reason is that the company does not offer much variability in size. This factor affects many people as a wrong size can do more harm than good. Moreover, your mattress matters as well.
If you have a soft mattress, it will ultimately affect the size of your pillow cube, which will size down when you are going to use it, again affecting your posture. On the bright side, if you manage to find the right size, you are out of the danger zone, as many experts believe that it will surely help your side sleeping posture. The overall extract of this research was that a specific pillow design aimed at a particular sleep position rarely provides the required results in most cases.
What are the alternatives?
The best alternatives for side sleepers can be those pillows that do not have a solid foam, unlike these pillow cubes. You can try following recommendations from experts. Nest Bedding Easy Breather Pillow offers shredded foam suitable for side sleepers, and the company offers a 30-day return policy if the pillow does not match your needs.
Most of us put our hands below the pillow during side sleeping posture. In that case, you should look for stacking up two pillows or use a loftier pillow not to compress the nerves in your hand and maintain a nice angle for your head.
Summary:
Using pillow cubes can prove beneficial if you successfully get the proper height for your head and shoulders. It is hard to find that height and adjusting to solid foam in these pillow cubes can be troublesome for side sleepers as it can tense the muscles in the neck and result in lower jaw and neck pain. So, it would be better if you were careful while going for such a trend.
