Day 5

My neck was aching so I used my pillows last night. I'm thinking that sleeping without a pillow should be treated like a workout plan where you have rest days for your muscles to recover. Perhaps I need to let my neck muscles recover for a day or two.

Day 4

I had a 2 hour nap in the afternoon yesterday in bed without a pillow and it was great. I think I slept on my stomach most of the time with my head titled to the side on my forearm. You get less pressure on your head if you use both your forearms.

My sleep last night wasn't great and my neck and back were hurting at times. I'm not sure if I can attribute this bad sleep to the lack of a pillow though. My neck and upper back show just a small amount of pain in the morning now compared to the two previous days.

Day 3

I'm physically unable to sleep in positions shown in Tetley's article in Figs. 1 and 2 because my arm doesn't twist that much.

I can't sleep on my arm in this position as it's too stressful for my shoulder

I slept on my stomach with my head on the back of a hand rather than an arm as this seems more comfortable. The hand is needed or else my head would roll into an uncomfortable position.

I have a slight pain, or annoyance rather, at the bottom of my neck at the back.

Day 2

I tried out different sleeping positions last night. I take back what I said yesterday about sleeping on the back being the most comfortable because after a little while it gets uncomfortable for the head. This is probably because my head is not accustomed to the increase in blood pressure while resting. There was also more pressure exerted by the bed on the back of my head than with a pillow because a pillow would cradle my head with a greater surface area thus resulting in less pressure on the back of my head. My head probably needs to get used to these two factors which are an increase in blood pressure in the head and the increase in pressure on the back of the head.

Sleeping on the side is definitely not uncomfortable if you have your arm under your head. I seem to have done this with my arm in the lookout posture (Fig. 4 from Tetley's article) instead of the postures shown in Fig.1 and Fig. 2.

If I recall correctly I ended up sleeping in the lookout posture as outlined in Fig. 4.

The back of my neck/upper back is aching a bit today. My body probably needs to get used to the new sleeping positions.

Day 1

I have been having neck pains for three days now. I believe it's because I slept in a weird position a few days ago on my pillow. The pain has been subsiding since.

I actually slept without a pillow last night before creating this blog and reading anything related to sleeping without a pillow. I decided to scrap the pillow last night because my neck pains were exacerbated with my pillows. I usually sleep with two thin pillows.

From what I experienced, sleeping on the back is the most comfortable, sleeping on the side creates stress on the neck, and sleeping on the stomach with the head turned to one side and on the arm is fine. As far as I can remember, I fell asleep on my back and woke up on my stomach with my head on my arm.

There is some pain in my neck but there has been a reduction in pain from the previous day and so I can't tell whether sleeping without a pillow has helped reduce the pain because, who knows, I could be in the same position I'm in now if I did use a pillow.

Let's see what happens tomorrow after using a sleeping position outlined in Tetley's article.

Introduction

I'm a fairly healthy 22 year old male without any medical conditions. I've decided to put my spine on the line to contest the notion that pillows are a necessity. The current understanding of pillows is that they allow the neck to be in alignment with the spine in order to prevent neck pains, as well as being a comfortable surface for the head to rest on.

I have done a little bit of reading on the history of pillows and from what I've gathered pillows were only used by the wealthy to rest their heads. The pillows that were used in ancient times were not necessarily soft with the ancient Egyptians and Chinese using hard materials such as wood and stone as head rests while they slept. This definitely takes cranium comfort out of the equation but they must have realised some importance in elevating the head while sleeping.

Ancient Egyptian pillow

If pillows where just available to the wealthy in ancient times, the rest of the population must have survived without the use of pillows. Pillows started to become mainstream from the industrial age onwards when materials were much more affordable. I'm under the impression that owning a pillow from the industrial age onwards added to a person's social status whereas a pillowless person would be regarded as socially inferior.

I have been trying to find out the ways that nature has intended humans to behave. As humans are primates, it would be a good idea to observe the sleeping positions of primates, in particular chimpanzees as they are according to modern scientific understanding the closest relatives of human beings.

Sleeping chimpanzee

Observing sleeping apes, we can conclude that they have a range of sleeping positions which vary from resting their heads on their hands, arms or shoulders, whereas the head is completely unsupported when an ape sleeps on its back.

I also wanted to read about the sleeping habits of humans living in tribal communities and came across this article written by Michael Tetley, a physiotherapist, and an ex-veteran from Kenya. You can read more about Michael Tetley here. His article titled 'Instinctive sleeping and resting postures: an anthropological and zoological approach to treatment of low back and joint pain' enlightens us about sleeping positions used by tribal Kenyans, Tibetans and others without the use of pillows.

Tibetans sleeping on their shins

Using the sleeping positions outlined in Tetley's article I will be using this blog to document my pillowless experiences.