This guide is designed to get you sleeping correctly, to keep your body upright and to enhance the process of unwinding under chiropractic care.
When sleeping you should:
- Stay in one position
- Sleep comfortably and deeply
- Wake refreshed & free in your body
Two things are required to get your sleeping position perfect:
- Correct pillow height
- Excellent mattress
MATTRESS
An excellent mattress is SUPER FIRM, FLAT and HARD. I deliberately say ‘hard’ because even the best mattresses will always soften over time. So, if you start with a medium it will be terribly soft in no time.
AVOID: pillow tops, expensive/fancy beds and salesmen gimmicks
We recommend a mattress designed by Advanced Biostructural Correction Australasia (ABCA). This is the association of chiropractors like us who utilise ABC as their primary adjusting technique. Our association has purposely designed and manufactured these high-quality postural support products to maintain your body in an optimal upright state. Click Here to see the full range of mattresses available.
PILLOW HEIGHT
Over all my years of practice I have never met two people who have the same body. Therefore, no one size pillow will fit all! We each require a unique pillow height that suits our body shape and current spinal balance. The other common gimmick we hear is, ‘your pillow height should be about the same as the distance between your shoulder and ear’. This sounds logical except very few people have a perfectly balanced and symmetrical spine. Most are twisted and forward to varying degrees which means this measure is highly inaccurate.
To assess the correct pillow height for your body follow these steps:
- Lying on your back = NO PILLOW
- Lying on your side:
- TEST = nudge the hip and shoulder forward and back lightly
- If body rolls forward = pillow to LOW, raise pillow height
- If body rolls backwards = pillow to HIGH, lower pillow height
- SWEET SPOT = comfortable, body balanced/stable (no rolling forward or backwards) and ‘eyes flutter’ as if your body is saying ‘AHHH’ because it is totally balanced/supported and can switch off
If you cannot get the pillow height right, no matter how many different heights you try, then your mattress is likely to soft and the problem!
To create the correct pillow height you have 2 options:
- Use bath towels folded to get the ideal height
- Purchase an ABCA Adjustable Pillow from us and use the inserts to raise/lower your pillow height to the ideal level. You will not find another pillow on the market like it. It has been specifically designed for this purpose.
