Is this a proper pillow?

Pillow optimal size.

The pillow is not a simple rectangle of cloth stuffed with soft material, but a true companion, which sustains, more or less correctly, our head for about one third of life. Pillows are a constant cause of frustration for many.
An orthopedic pillow is an important item, like the bed net and the mattress, is indeed crucial to the quality of sleep.
The most important features are just the right height and a proper consistency, these are fundamental to achieve optimal comfort. On the other side it can be challenging to evaluate the correct setting since much depends on the position taken while sleeping and the anatomical characteristics of people using it.
One thing, however, is certain: if you sleep on the wrong pillow you risk, progressively, to experience serious problems in the back, neck and upper limbs, which often translates into a sense of malaise spread upon awakening. When you sleep the entire spine should be in a natural and relaxed position, starting from your cervical spine. The width of the pillow, above all, should be around 22″x 16″ to fit the width of the shoulders and prevent the head from sliding from one side during the night.
The height is crucial. If we consider sleeping in the supine position (chest up), we realize that a pillow too low or absent forces the neck to accentuate its curvature (cervical lordosis) to offset the back curvature (kyphosis).
As if from a sitting position, as you are likely reading this article, you drop the head back slightly, forcing it to an unnatural position. The result of this bad posture is to induce stiffening of the muscles that support the head, with the subsequent onset of pain in the neck and shoulder after waking. Likewise, a pillow that is too high, forcing the entire backbone and the muscles that support it in an unnatural position, maintained for so long (about one third of our day), can cause many problems upon awakening. We realize the inconvenience caused by this wrong posture when we drive for an extended period with our head bent forward: the spinal column is not in the correct position and the neck muscles tense therefore we experience neck pain.
If we sleep sideways on a pillow too high or too low again, the column loses its linearity. That is like holding for a long period our neck bent to the left or to the right, the feeling could be enjoyable on the short run, but certainly not in the long-term.
The height of the pillow is, therefore, a very important parameter, closely linked to its consistency. If the pillow is too soft neck “sinks” in it, but if the support is too hard, the neck muscles stretch. In both cases, the cervical column is forced to maintain an unnatural position that the muscles try to compensate thus constituting a potential source of pain. As a rule of thumb the pillow should maintain a height of 4 to 6 inches In the next article I will be talking about materials and I will give you some advice to choose the right pillow.