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Chinese pillow history - What is the perfect pillow?

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On 1/1/2020 at 10:19 AM, silent thunder said:

 

My wife loves to goad me on my plethora of pillows but after decades of rock climbing, kung fu, working in construction and hiking/bicycling across much of North America and a fair amount of Canada... at age 50, I sleep soundly and wake daily without an alarm to no pain, so I swear by my setup. 

 

 

 

 

No.  Your wife loves to goad you because you nightly build a bunting board in your marital bed.  

 

Do we need to have a bedding ceremony?  Someone call a Dothraki.....

 

 

 

Edited by manitou
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20 hours ago, manitou said:

 

 

No.  Your wife loves to goad you because you nightly build a bunting board in your marital bed.  

 

Do we need to have a bedding ceremony?  Someone call a Dothraki.....

 

 

 

Actually I've brought her over in recent years, she's now up to four, including a body pillow between knees and feet.  It's seemed to aid in her no longer waking regularly with lower back pain due to cocked hips.

 

As for bunting boards, they're no impediment, be they pillow or plywood!  Neither were her Tank Commander Father, nor her Prim German Mother, nor were the cramped backseat of our Ford Escort, or the pine needles 35 feet up in my favorite pine tree.  When the rut is on with us, nothing seemed to get in our way... for long.

 

Fact is, my Viking sperm stormed through our birth control like it wasn't there when our son was ready to manifest.  :P   true story.

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23 hours ago, silent thunder said:

 lower back pain due to cocked hips.

 

 

 

 

Any chance you can elaborate on this?  :o

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1 hour ago, manitou said:

Any chance you can elaborate on this?  :o

 

Sure, her sensitivity to sleep position has a bit of "backstory" to it :P i love puns...

but I'll give the barest version of it here, since it relates to getting restful sleep and pillows:

 

My wife fell down a long flight of stairs in our second apartment and fractured her spine in two places when she was 22-23. 

She fractured her Coccyx and T-7.  She was found unresponsive, no pulse and revived, by me.

 

Boy was she pissed at me when I brought her round... going from blissful mother light to agonizing pain.  But I will keep this short. 

 

The T-7 fracture went undiagnosed for about 15 years.

 

Weeks after the coccyx healed, she was still experiencing severe pain.

Eventually she said "fuck this... I'm moving again" turned on a drumming cd of mine and began to dance through the pain to the drumming of the Burundi Tribe.  I'll never forget that song, it played in our home for hours on end, for weeks on end.  She danced into the pain, through the pain and eventually out the other side.

 

She healed herself through what I now know as 'ecstatic dance'. 

She recovered fully and for about 15 years, lived pain free. 

 

When the pain began to return regularly later in life, she sought a chiropractor who revealed the old T-7 fracture that was causing the discomfort.  She found daily dance and Hatha kept it at bay.

 

Cut to now another 15 years later.  Being over 50, if she sleeps on her side, without good support for her topside leg, the leg drops down, cocking her hips and taking spine out of a neutral position... which causes inflammation in the soft tissue aggravating the old T-7 site resulting in discomfort. 

 

After witnessing my springyness in rising each morning pain free, she began 'borrowing' my pillow for her knees, then her shoulder.  Eventually she got her own support pillows and we have quite the pillow nest when we sleep... our cats regale our wisdom in this in their daily lounging on our persian pillow palace.

 

It seems simple, but experience has shown us that it really makes a profound difference to sleep with the spine in a neutral position. 

2015-08-21-this-sleeping-position-helps-

We use an air-chamber mattress, so that the firmness may be adjusted on any given day, to suit requirements as they adjust.  Mine is topped up to maximum every week, she varies her side to accomodate her needs.  We're very happy with it, though recently I've considered getting one of the memory foam covers, as she slept so soundly on one, during one of our recent vacation stays.

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Strangely enough, that was quite interesting.

 

Okay, now I know what hip-cocking is.  :huh:

 

Thank you.  I do the very same thing every night.  I cock my hips, only didn't know that was what I was doing.  I actually feel a wonderful stretch which leaves me kind of tingly when I do that.  So to do the pillow thing would actually rob me of a little fun.

 

 

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This may just be me, and maybe because I'm young, but I actually find sleeping on the floor with only a blanket very comfortable. It sometimes takes some shifting, but eventually I manage to rest my head on my bent arm just right, and get my hip at just the right angle against the ground to be perfectly comfortable. It's a great perk to be able to sleep just about anywhere!

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On 1/1/2020 at 4:31 PM, Earl Grey said:

More like if you can’t see how idiotic you sound or what a paraphrase is, you’re still an idiot.

Uh, you do realize that paraphrase and quote (much less "ACTUAL quote") are LITERALLY ANTONYMS by definition, NOT SYNONYMS???  Or are you also redefining all literate English speakers as "idiots," now?

 

NO, you do not get to reverse the English language and employ mental gymnastics to "prove" you are not a complete liar and "save face!"

 

Your desperate global search for authority continues...everywhere high and low...except for within, lol.

 

OK, now moving on... :rolleyes:

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5 hours ago, gendao said:

Uh, you do realize that paraphrase and quote (much less "ACTUAL quote") are LITERALLY ANTONYMS by definition, NOT SYNONYMS???  Or are you also redefining all literate English speakers as "idiots," now?

 

NO, you do not get to reverse the English language and employ mental gymnastics to "prove" you are not a complete liar and "save face!"

 

Your desperate global search for authority continues...everywhere high and low...except for within, lol.

 

OK, now moving on... :rolleyes:

 

It took you ONE WEEK to come up with that pathetic reply?
 

You still never indicate what languages you speak, the nuances of history, or if you actually traveled and lived while talking with people you claim to speak for as though your view of colonial history represented everyone. 
 

And of course, everyone on this thread already agreed you’re just a pest. Nothing to do with me being a global authority—simple elementary knowledge.

 

Keep trying—who knows? Maybe you’ll be memorialized like Rosa Parks for eliminating pillows because they’re white sheets too.

Edited by Earl Grey

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I hate it when the government shoots vapors through my air vents.  It's lucky this fellow had a back door step to take his old pawn shop typewriter out to and hack out this masterpiece.

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Slight tangent, a voice in my head told me to buy the Ostrich pillow mini.  <no birds hurt in its making>.  It's a small bead filled pillow that goes over your hand, like a very thick glove.  For side sleepers who keep the lower hand under the head, it keeps the hand from getting numb, being pinned for hours by the heavy head.  It also props the head up a little higher.

 

I used it last night.  So far so good.  https://ostrichpillow.com/products/ostrichpillow-mini?gclid=CjwKCAiApOvwBRBUEiwAcZGdGNyOcRkbWwm6SLM06ithy_lJ1MDooPsuAHFqowqRTV5P9gsNwU_raBoCbAgQAvD_BwE

Also sold on Amazon. 

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