7 Benefits Of Sleeping With A Pillow Between Your Knees

Hip and back pain can be miserable to sleep with, as 10% of the general population knows. That number increases with factors like age and how often you play sports, but straddling a body pillow may ease the burden. Here are 7 benefits of sleeping with a pillow between your knees.

1. Makes Side-sleeping More Comfortable

Side sleeping is the most natural sleeping position for the majority of us, but there’s no doubt that it can cause some of us to toss and turn as we try to get comfortable.

As gravity does its thing, it pulls the limbs down to earth and puts pressure on the shoulder and hip joints. That can lead to frequent nighttime wake-ups.

Don’t let all of that get you down, though. If you’re a habitual back sleeper who wants to switch to your side because of sleep apnea or indigestion, there’s good news: body pillows like our Cuddler can make side sleeping feel like a dream.

Keeping a plushy pillow between your knees relieves pressure on the joints. That means you’ll be a lot more likely to spend time on your side.

2. Arthritis Relief

When it comes to hip pain, one of the main villains is arthritis. And studies show that it can have a negative impact on your sleep.

There are a few different types of arthritis, and they can all lead to pain from swollen joints causing friction. Unfortunately side sleeping can make this worse as your heavy limbs put stress on those joints.

Thankfully, sleeping with a pillow in between your legs can help not only your hip joints but also your shoulders if it’s long enough.

The delightfully squashy, yet supportive Melofoam™ in our body pillow acts as a cozy support beam that can keep your arms and legs comfortable, preventing them from needing painful adjustments throughout the night.

3. Aligns Your Spine When Used With The Proper Head Pillow

No matter what position you choose to conk out in, your spine may give you grief in the morning. There are ways around this, such as sleeping with a pillow under your knees if you’re a back sleeper or keeping one under your tummy if you like to sleep on your front.

If you’re a side sleeper, the method of choice for keeping your spine straight is the ol’ pillow and leg sandwich.

Without a pillow between the thighs, your upper leg is bound to fall forward, leaving it in an open-scissors position with the rear leg. This twists the spine which can be a major problem for people with a history of slipped discs.

The perfect side dish to the pillow sandwich? A thick pillow so that your neck doesn’t droop down. This helps keep the entire spine in a healthy line.

4. Keeps Hips Aligned

As far as keeping the body aligned goes, the hips should be as high on everyone’s list of priorities as the spine. And keeping them in a healthy position is one of the other benefits of sleeping with a pillow between your legs

Unfortunately, lying on your side usually leads to one leg naturally closing over the other. While it may feel great at first, this can make hip misalignment pain worse and end with your sleep getting interrupted.

And that’s the challenge of sleeping on your side. Keeping your legs properly stacked can get old quickly. So, if you’re someone who’s been diagnosed with hip misalignment, your doctor has probably advised you to try a pillow between the knees.

Whatever the cause of your hip pain, keeping them square during sleep can help ease it. And a cushion can lend a powerful helping hand.

5. Sciatica Relief

Ever feel pain and numbness spreading from your lower back down to your legs? If you answered ‘yes,’ you may have sciatica.

It’s a condition that’s often caused by a slipped disc pressing on the sciatic nerve – the largest nerve in the body, responsible for supplying sensation to the lower back and parts of the leg.

Sciatica can be extremely difficult to sleep with because the pain flares up with the smallest changes to your lower back posture. Unfortunately, twisting with one leg across the other doesn’t exactly help matters.

That’s where sleeping with a pillow between your legs can help. It keeps the hips, legs, and spine in a stable position, preventing movement that could lead to pain shooting down your legs.

6. Prevents Numbness In Limbs

One other issue that side sleepers are all too familiar with is dead limbs. The good news is that you may be able to bring them back to life with a Cuddler!

Another article from our Napperhood explains how your sleeping position can affect the nerves in your arms, leaving them numb, tingly, and sometimes even in pain. It’s one of the ways that side sleeping can go wrong, but snoozing with a cushion between your legs and arms can help in the same way it helps your lower back and hips.

The cushy column keeps your shoulders and hips open, leaving more room for major nerves to breathe. It may help you say goodbye to numb limbs.

7. Leads To Deeper Sleep

Take the increased comfort, benefits to multiple hip and back conditions, and less compression of the nerves, and put it all together. What do you get? Improved sleep.

In particular, studies show that use of body pillows in a side position leads to more time spent in the deeper stages of sleep. That’s good news for a recuperating body.

Participants in the study who used the cushions wound up getting XX% more deep sleep than those who didn’t. The reason for this is likely as simple as making side sleeping more comfortable.

In other words, more comfort equals more Z’s.

Conclusion

A pillow between the knees has all kinds of benefits for side sleepers. The added cushion keeps the hips open, relieving joint pain while also having potential benefits to spine alignment and sleep. Healthy individuals and those with pre-existing conditions can both get a boost from a body pillow.