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What is a Cervical Pillow?
A cervical pillow is a pillow that is specifically made to support the user’s head and neck. The word cervical refers to the cervical area of the spine (neck) that the pillow is designed to support.
There is a cervical curve that is located in the neck and is comprised of the first seven vertebrae of your spine. A healthy cervical curve resembles a C shape if you are looking at the spine from the side.
Cervical pillows help to relieve tension and reduce pain by properly supporting the head and neck while keeping them properly aligned with the rest of the spine when you are sleeping or resting.
Who Should Use a Cervical Pillow and What Are the Benefits?
Anyone who suffers from neck pain, pain in the upper back, stiffness, or headaches might be able to benefit from using a cervical pillow.
Why is it Important to Support the Cervical Area?
Car accidents or other events can injure a person’s neck causing damage to ligaments, tendons, and soft tissue. These injuries can cause the normal cervical curve that is supposed to exist in our necks to disappear and cause us pain and discomfort.
Even if you don’t suffer some sort of traumatic injury to your neck we live in a world that constantly puts stress on the cervical area of our spine. Many of us spend several hours per day sitting to do our jobs. If we spend these hours sitting with poor posture it puts a strain on our necks. Making matters worse, “tech neck” is now a term that we use to refer to a condition that is caused by the frequent straining of our necks to look down at computers, smartphones, and all the other electronics devices that have become such a large part of our daily lives. Below is a video that shows how craning your neck to look at your phone places an extraordinary amount of stress on your spine.
Regardless of what happened to cause your neck discomfort a cervical pillow can help give your neck the proper support it needs to relieve tension and pain by supporting and helping to restore the natural contour of your neck.
What are Cervical Pillows Made Of?
Most cervical pillows are made of foam or memory foam. The memory foam allows the pillow to conform to each person’s head and neck providing individualized support to suit each person’s needs.
Do Cervical Pillows Really Work?
In 2004 a study was published in The Journal of the Canadian Chiropractic Association that showed a statistically significant reduction in pain for chronic neck pain sufferers who used semi-customized cervical pillows.
Do Cervical Pillows Help Side Sleepers?
Most cervical pillows will work great for side sleepers. Sleeping on your back with these pillows is the only way to support and promote the natural cervical curve in the neck. However, it is still important to keep your head and neck aligned with the rest of your body when you are sleeping on your side. Fortunately, most cervical pillows will also do a great job of supporting the heads and necks of side sleepers.
Below you can see a video of how to use the Tempur-Pedic TEMPUR-Neck Pillow for sleeping on your side. While I usually prefer to use these pillows for sleeping on my back the Doctor on the video shows how this pillow can work for side sleepers or people who like to switch positions between their side and back.
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Are Cervical Pillows Just for People With Neck Pain?
In an article aimed at neck pain prevention on the Mayo Clinic website, it is recommended that people sleep in a good position with their head and neck aligned with their body along with support for their neck.
This means that not only can cervical pillows provide relief for people who suffer from neck and head pain, but they can also help us avoid developing neck pain and headaches to begin with.
Here are some bestselling cervical pillows on Amazon:
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