u/Oook-aand

This is a bit of a PSA for anyone dealing with random neck/back tightness. I know it's super off topic but this was a revelation for me so I wanted to share the love😂.

I went through the whole cycle:

• stretching
• posture fixes
• new desk setup
• even those weird massage guns

And yeah, they helped a bit but nothing really fixed it. I'd always wake up with a sore neck and my back was super stiff throughout the day.

Then I saw someone on TikTok mention that if your pillow is bad you're going to wake up sore the next morning because your spine isn't aligned. Which made sense to me. I figured if I could spend about $100 on a couple of ergonomic pillows and finally fix my neck and back tightness, it was worth a shot. I've had to spend more then that on 2 chiropractor visits.

So I finally upgraded to one of these ergonomic pillows from shopderila.com after doing some digging into brands. They were a little pricey, but the ones this person on TikTok recommended were over $250 each, so these felt like a much better option 😂.

And out of everything I tried, the pillow upgrade made the biggest difference. Not instantly, but after a few nights I noticed I wasn’t waking up with that same tight feeling.

It’s kind of funny because it was the most obvious fix, and I left it until last. So yeah if you’ve tried everything else, maybe check your pillow before your next trip to the chiropractor.

This is kind of random but it hit me recently after a trip. I Stayed at a hotel for a couple nights and had genuinely some of the best sleep I’ve had in years. Like knocked out, didn’t wake up once, woke up feeling normal instead of groggy in the morning.

At first I thought maybe I was just tired from travelling, but it happened both nights. So I started trying to figure out what was different. Same phone habits. Same caffeine. Same bedtime. The only thing I could really put it down to was the pillow and the bed. The bed was 2 conjoined king single mattresses with a divot in the middle so I was leaning towards the pillow being the difference.

The pillow actually had a bit of shape to it and didn’t just flatten when you laid on it. My neck felt supported instead of kind of just floating around. When I got home and used my old pillow again I immediately noticed the difference. Back to adjusting it, flipping it, waking up slightly stiff.

That’s what sent me down a bit of a rabbit hole looking into pillows, and I ended up trying one from derilaco.com after seeing it mentioned a few times and reading reviews.

Not saying it’s exactly the same as the hotel one, but it has that same “holds your neck in place” feeling instead of collapsing overnight. And it made a massive difference. Once again I was sleeping on a cloud, blacking out and waking up feeling normal. I never would've thought having a decent pillow actually made that big of a difference.

Kind of funny that I spent money on all sorts of things trying to improve my sleep and it ended up being something as simple as a pillow.

Anyway, just sharing in case anyone else has had that “why do I sleep better somewhere else?” moment. It might be worth looking at what you’re sleeping on at home.