When it comes to living with body aches and pains on a daily basis, here’s what everyone who suffers from those aches and pains needs to know about orthopedic pillows. Now, the best advice anyone could get for dealing with daily aches and pains is to get out there and exercise more and improve your fitness. That’s right, lack of use and being overweight are probably the number one cause of most daily body aches. In the event that that is impossible, there are a variety of orthopedic pillows that can help anyone with their pain. In this article, we will look at various types of pillows and highlight the benefits of using them.
In medicine, the field of orthopedics is concerned with disorders between the muscles and the skeleton. To illustrate the benefits of exercise in improving aches and pains, consider the person who is overweight. For many overweight people, lower back pain is very common. In the body, the stomach muscles and the back muscles work together to maintain posture. As overweight increases, the stomach muscles become weaker and weaker. This means that the body has to rely more on the back muscles to maintain correct posture. This causes strain on the back muscles and is one of the main reasons overweight people get back pain.
In the example above, it’s easy to see how improving the strength of your stomach muscles could, over time, relieve back pain. Orthopedic pillows work in much the same way by providing support to areas that might have become weak from lack of use or injury.
One type of orthopedic pillow is called a cervical pillow. This pillow is designed to provide additional support to the neck and shoulders and is most often used for sleeping. By providing additional support, these pillows also help maintain proper posture while sleeping. Another type of cervical pillow simply raises your head during sleep. This can have several benefits for people who have trouble sleeping due to breathing problems, as well as people who have gastric reflux. Finally, a third type of cervical pillow is useful for travel. Also known as a travel pillow, this horseshoe-shaped pillow helps support your neck and head while sleeping upright.
Another type of pillow used during sleep is a body pillow. These are typically long, cylindrical pillows used to provide extra support for your hips and shoulders while you sleep. These pillows are especially helpful for women because the extra width of a woman’s hips can cause stress on the lower back spine.
Knee pillows are also used for sleeping and, like the body pillow, are especially helpful for women who sleep on their sides. To illustrate this point, let’s imagine a woman sleeping on her right side. This means that her left hip is up and her right hip is resting against the mattress. While she sleeps, her legs rest on top of each other. Due to the extra width of your hips, when your left leg rests on your right leg, your left femur will slightly pull your left hip down, i.e. towards the direction of your feet, meanwhile your right hip will slightly rotate upward , or in the direction of your shoulders. Due to her slight rotation, her spine will curve to the right. A knee pillow, placed between her knees, would lift her left leg and her hips would not rotate and her spine would remain straight. There is another type of knee pillow that is useful for anyone who suffers from swelling in the legs. This wedge-like pillow lifts your legs. This decreases blood flow to the lower legs and helps relieve swelling.
The last type of pillow we are going to talk about is not usually used for sleeping and is called a lumbar pillow. However, just like the other pillows, there are a couple of different types. One type is worn in bed and helps support your back while reading or just sitting up in bed. The other type is used sitting on a normal chair. If you are an office worker or a truck driver, or just find yourself sitting for long periods of time, you may develop body aches due to poor posture and lack of movement, so a lumbar support pillow can be of great help.
As you can see, there are many different types of orthopedic pillows designed to relieve pain. Depending on your particular circumstances, one or more may be beneficial to you.