If you were here for the first two installments on choosing your pillow, you know by now that there is no one-pillow-fits-all solution out there.

And if you weren’t here, you can start here.

In this third segment, we will focus on why unlike animals and babies, we find it hard to lie down comfortably without pillows.

Animals and babies can sleep in any position.

And they don’t need soft beds or pillows to be comfortable.

Adult humans, on the other hand, often struggle to find the right position and the right pillow to get a good night’s rest.

Why is that so?

We have unique preferences on how we like to sleep and what kind of support we need because of the different structure, shape, and suppleness of our bodies.

A big part of that reason is how our standing posture translates to lying down.

Think about someone you know who stoops forward a lot while standing. Imagine you are that person. Your spine is rounded, your shoulders hunched. The back of the neck is shortened with the head in a forward position relative to the torso.

Now imagine what you would need to do to lie comfortably on the back. How much support would you need under your head?

Clearly, you will have a tough time being comfortable on the back without a lot of support under the head.

Even with the head support, your knees would have to be bent to allow your lower back to relax from a long day of keeping you from falling over. (This is a complex topic, and I will cover it in more detail in the group series “Getting to Know Yourself” in August).

You would also most likely prefer lying on the side. Lying on the front of the body would be almost unthinkable.

Now imagine yourself as someone who is very erect, even overly so.

Someone with a “military posture” with the chest pushed out, lower back slightly arched and the shoulders held back. Imagine how you would lie on your side where softening the shoulders is required to allow the neck to be comfortable.

In both cases, your standing posture has somehow carried over to your sleeping position!

It’s like your personal style for moving through life and engaging with the world.

The way you stand reveals a lot about your early years, physical history, daily habits, and how you interact with your environment.

It also affects how you use muscular effort to maintain the relative positions of your head, shoulders, spine, and pelvis while balancing in gravity on two feet.

Even more interesting is how this muscular work continues when you are lying on the ground with nowhere to fall.

For when you are lying on the floor, you should be able to let go of all the muscles and relax completely on the floor.

However, this “letting go” of muscular work while lying down happens to varying degrees with different people.

People who are supple can soften their bodies to mold to the shape of the floor. People who are stiff continue their muscular work and need to be supported in places where their bodies cannot mold to the floor.

Remember the experiment we did in the first installment on Pillow Talk to determine how much support you need under the head in lying down on your back.

Let’s look at the photos of the 3 options again.

While I don’t want to oversimplify things (since there’s a lot to consider in the position of the head relative to the torso and everybody is different), we can clearly see that there’s a connection between your standing posture and how you lie on your back.

Notice how the eyes in Photo 2A naturally align with the horizon. If you have a habit of looking down as you walk, consider how that might affect the position of your head.

Three posts ago, we began with a simple question: What is the best pillow? That question led us to some intriguing insights about ourselves, sparked more questions, and revealed unexpected connections.

While we may not have found a one-pillow-fits-all solution, we did discover opportunities for knowing ourselves better and improving our comfort in a meaningful way.

A little attention goes a long way. Understanding your comfort needs and being adaptable to various situations is essential for your overall well-being!