One of the most commonly given tips I saw in the E-Books I read was that a person should avoid sleeping on thick pillows. The arguement was that when you sleep on a thick pillow, the extra thickness pushed your head up and your cervical vertebrate is slowly over time bend. The bending eventualy becomes permanent so you can’t revert back to the upright posture and you lose extra inches in height from a bad lifestyle choice.

In theory, it makes some sense by my personal opinion is that one should sleep with a thinner pillow. In the US and some other conutries, the pillow was always a very thick and hard object. I would assume that the original purpose of a pillow was to give the big human head a place to put to itself in comfort. If you have ever slept in a sleeping bag without a pillow for the first time, you might have noticed that the ground or bed was not as comfortable as with a pillow. Pillows are often made from cotton or feathers to give its soft and compressible material.

My overall opinion is to actually use a thinner pillow under your head. There is actually a natural curve to your vertebrate. There is a slight but noticeable hunch in most people’s backs that causes the heavy human head to be bend forward and the beck vertebrate to be bent forward. Anatomically, that is not the optimum body structure for height, but it still must be considered. In general, having a pillow to sleep with is more comfortable for one’s head for most people. If a person prefers to sleep lying on their side, they more likely will like a pillow to put their head since they have to take into consideration the length difference between where their shoulder begin and their head begins, which is usually around a 4-6 difference. If one however sleeps on their back or on their stomach, the pillow is less needed. However, with a thinner pillow the effects of the body’s natural reaction will be lessened. If you are not too old, the body can still be malleable enough to reverse the effects and manage to relax enough to put the head fully down thus improving one’s posture and increase height.

So, sleeping without a pillow will theoretically improve your posture and you can gain a little bit of extra height but only if you sleep on your back. If you slept on your stomach and did not twist your head, you would suffocate to death. If you sleep on your side, the removal of the pillow will do nothing and you will only be sleeping in less comfort than before. Go with the thinner pillow to rest the head and allow for the padding thickness since one’s back is supposed to be curved slightly in the neck region.