What Are Body Pillows For?
Three-quarters of our lives are spent sleeping. For an average human being, that is a whopping 26 years! Now, if you will sleep for 26 years, it may be time for you to evaluate your sleeping environment: Your bedding, mattress, and pillows.
Although body pillows aren’t as popular as regular bed pillows, they have uses that make them stand out. Let’s check what is the purpose of a body pillow.
What Are Body Pillows Good For?
- make sleeping comfortable
- prevent tossing and turning
- help you sleep on your side
- improve body alignment
- help in relaxation
- ease aches and pains
- increase blood circulation
- help with snoring
What is a Body Pillow?
Body pillows are designed to support the contours of your body and provide support where you need it most. They come in various shapes and sizes to suit each sleep position and help prevent aches and pains.
If all working-age people use an ergonomic pillow, back and shoulder pain would be significantly reduced.
Body pillows are seemingly available everywhere. You may have spotted them on television, across feeds on Instagram, and in stores. They are not just fluff; they will help you rest more comfortably if you’re healing from surgery, have a bad back, are pregnant, or just need something to hug.
What Is the Purpose of a Body Pillow?
A body pillow can make sleeping comfortable
To get the most out of your large pillow, hug it tightly and tuck your lower half between your knees for support when sleeping on your side. This position will help relieve pressure throughout all crucial joints in the body like hips, shoulders, and neck.
A body pillow can help you sleep on your side
Side sleeping is considered one of the healthiest sleeping positions. For side-sleepers, a long pillow helps to align your spine. You achieve this by holding it between your knees and against your body’s length.
A body pillow is for relaxation
Relaxing with a big pillow allows you to feel emotionally settled, allowing for faster sleep. This is good when falling asleep in tense situations such as during exams or before an important meeting.
A body pillow can ease aches and pains
Body pillows give you multiple resting positions, helping you find some relief from your ailments and pressure points. A standard bed pillow may not do much to ease you. The body pillow eliminates the need for multiple regular pillows to support hips, back, neck, etc.
Body pillows are also used for:
- Back pain: A body pillow can lessen pain and keep your spine well aligned if you have spinal conditions.
- Pregnancy: Manufactured with moms-to-be in mind, body pillows support your back, making pregnant women sleep easier on their side. You don’t need extra pillows to support your legs, belly, and head.
- Fibromyalgia or Arthritis: It takes the pressure off your muscles and joints through full-body support from shoulders to ankles.
- Recovering from hip surgery or knee replacement: You will heal quickly by using a cushion the right way.
And by the way, body pillows are good for many other purposes!
In the pillow war, it is an excellent and extensive defense. If you don’t want to hear your partner’s jokes, you can place the body pillow as a wall between you in bed.
But even though good sleep is essential, sometimes you just need to throw it on the floor. Rather than hugging the cushion, sometimes you should hug the right person.
What Are Anime Body Pillows For?
An anime body pillow (dakimakura) is a long pillow with a printed anime character originating from Japan. You get to hug your favorite anime character (waifu) when you have an anime body pillow.
Dakimakura is more of an emotional support pillow than a regular body pillow. Dakimakura sizes are also important due to their connection to anime culture: the width is around 20 inches, and the length is around 60 inches. Regular body pillows come in a variety of sizes and shapes.
Why Are Body Pillows So Expensive?
There are many types of body pillows available online. The most expensive cost hundreds of dollars, but nowadays the cheapest starts from 20 dollars, so they are no longer expensive!
And if the price sounds like an expensive purchase, you can compare them to the best neck pillows – they also go from tens of dollars to a couple of hundreds.
We spend almost a third of our lives sleeping, but few become really invested in the quality of life at night. Remember also to take good care of your purchase by using a pillow cover and cleaning it regularly!
Is this something you can relate to? I’ve tried to learn to sleep on my side but often spin on my back. Blanket tucked between my knees and hands didn’t give enough support, resulting in shoulder pain in the morning.
After using the body pillow: Adopting a new sleep position took me a while, but now the cushion lives between my legs, and when I hug the top, I get support for my chest. In the past, I woke up during the night, but now there are several nights behind when I don’t wake up at all. My shoulders feel much better, and I no longer have to stretch them that much in the mornings.
The Bottom Line
Few ever wonder what kind of pillow their head weighs on every night. That the cushion could have some different properties, or that it could help other pain conditions.
When you find the right one, you just know it. It’s the right pillow.
Adding a body pillow to sleep environments can prove a transformative and comforting solution for many restless sleepers. It might help you achieve the restorative and comfortable sleep you need.
A pillow is not a miracle worker that will solve all your sleep problems. But it can make your sleep much smoother.
