What pillow should I use for cervical herniation

Cervical spondylosis is a particularly torturous disease, which is closely related to aging, long-term sitting, overwork and injury. Cervical spondylosis can also affect sleep. Pain and discomfort are the causes of insomnia. Poor sleep will not only affect the condition, but also hinder the recovery of cervical spondylosis. You can usually choose a pillow that helps you sleep, so what kind of pillow should you sleep on?

Pillow filling: soft and breathable is best. Commonly used materials are duck down, buckwheat husk, cattail fluff, kapok, mung bean shells, chicken feathers, duck feathers, etc. Duck down is light, soft, and breathable, and the pillow height can be adjusted at will during use, making it an ideal pillow filling. Buckwheat husk has the advantages of being cheap and breathable. Mung bean shells are most suitable for summer, not only as they have good ventilation properties, but also as they have a cooling and heat-relieving effect. Sponges and plastic air pillows have poor air permeability and should not be used.

The height of the pillow: As the saying goes, "a high pillow brings peace of mind", but from a medical point of view, this is not true. If the pillow is too high, the head and neck will bend forward excessively; a low pillow or no pillow will cause the head and neck to be in an excessively extended state for a long time, resulting in an increase in the lordotic curvature of the cervical spine. Therefore, the habit of using high pillows, low pillows or no pillows for a long time should be overcome. Generally speaking, the pillow height should be 8-15cm, or calculated according to the formula: (shoulder width - head width) ÷ 2. For people who are used to sleeping on their backs, the height of their pillow should be consistent with the height of their fist; for people who are used to sleeping on their sides, the height of their pillow should be consistent with the width of one shoulder. When sleeping, you can flatten the middle of the pillow and raise the place where your neck rests on the pillow so that the cervical spine neither bends forward nor bends sideways, maintaining a proper extended position. This way you won’t have neck pain when you wake up in the morning.

Pillow shape: The best pillow shape is a Yuanbao shape that is low in the middle and high at both ends. This is because this shape can use the depression in the middle to maintain the physiological curvature of the cervical spine, and can also play a relative braking and fixing role on the head and neck, which can reduce abnormal activities of the head and neck during sleep. The length of the pillow should generally be 10-16cm longer than your shoulder width.