Core Products Pro Tip: Let Your Body Adjust to Your New Orthopedic Pillow

Brian Acton

Orthopedic pillows can offer a level of comfort and support that your old pillow just wasn’t providing. Core Products pillows are designed to position your head and neck in proper alignment, which can help you get a good night’s rest and relieve neck and back pain resulting from poor spinal posture.

But if you just bought a new orthopedic pillow, don’t immediately jump into using it every night. Ironically, using your new pillow too much in the beginning can lead to neck pain and discomfort. You need to take time to let your body adjust.

Why You Shouldn’t Overuse Your New Pillow

Have you ever had trouble falling asleep in a new environment, like at a friend’s guest room or a hotel room? Changing up your sleeping arrangements can disrupt your ability to fall, or stay, asleep. The same concept applies to your pillow: a new pillow may cause you to lie awake a little bit longer, so it’s a good idea to avoid using your pillow every night until you get used to it.

But there’s a more serious reason to avoid overusing your pillow when you first get it: your body needs to adapt to it. When you frequently practice poor posture (such as when you slouch, hunch forward, constantly look down at your phone, or sleep with your head positioned too low or too high), your body gets used to that positioning, and won’t be able to “snap back” into better habits immediately. Your spine will need some time to adjust.  

As a result, using an orthopedic pillow too much in the beginning can cause more neck pain as you position your cervical spine in a proper sleeping position, which is the opposite of what you want your pillow to do.

How to Adjust to Your New Orthopedic Pillow

To avoid sleep and neck pain issues, you should gradually ease in to using your orthopedic pillow. Here are some tips to avoid overuse when you first get your pillow:

• Don’t use the same pillow two nights in a row – alternate between your new pillow and your old pillow, so you’re only using your new pillow every other night.
• Alternatively, you can start by using your new pillow for a few hours a night, and slowly increase the amount of time you use it until you’re using it all night.
• Some pillows, like the Tri-Core® Cervical Support Pillow, come with different sized neck rolls for different levels of support. During the adjustment phase, you can start by using the minimum support option before graduating to the larger option if it makes sense.
• Get a second supportive pillow to alternate with your new orthopedic pillow. The Adjust-A-Loft™ Pillow can be custom filled to be as fluffy or flat as you want, and you can gradually adjust it to match the support level of your main orthopedic pillow. Alternate between each pillow until you fully transition fully to your main pillow.

Give yourself at least a few weeks to a month to ease into using your new orthopedic pillow before you start using it on a nightly basis. Once your body has gotten used to your new pillow and you’ve avoided an early phase of neck pain, you can start using it every night.