Why Do Guys Hug Pillows When They Sleep?

There are various sleeping positions, studies have revealed that each of them has disparate health benefits or disadvantages. And to an extent, they tell about the person’s personality.

In the course of this article, we are going to review some sleeping positions, why people choose them, and compare their health benefits. But first, let’s look at the reasons guys hug pillows when they sleep.

Hugging a pillow has various benefits as well as reasons. But when most people hear about it the first word that comes to their mind is loneliness. This is true but it is not always the case there are other psychological incentives behind it. Let’s treat some of them.

Guys Hugging A Pillow While Sleeping – Benefits & Reasons

Health Benefits:

Hugging a pillow while you sleep can cause your brain to release a hormone called oxytocin. This hormone will in turn boost the immune system and relieve pain and stress. Hereby extends the duration of your sleep and causes you to enjoy it more.

Also, patients who have chest infections like pneumonia, fiver, and other related diseases have reported that hugging the pillow when they sleep helps them to recover faster and also relieve pressure.

Even open heart surgery patients sometimes use it to help them through the recovery process.

It Tells Good About Their Personality

Hugging their pillows when they sleep shows that they will cherish their relationships with someone.

If they don’t have one already. It indicates that they are capable of loving a person so much and will place their relationship with that person above all else. Which catalyzes my next point, the most popular one.

They Yearn For Love

Spooning a pillow while sleeping is a strong indicator that the person has no significant other. He yearns to feel the comfort that comes from sharing the bed with a member of the opposite sex. That is why sleeping in this position can trick your brain into releasing oxytocin.

Do You Really Need To Wash New Bed Sheets Before Using Them? [Answered

Some of them have lost someone that was dear to them and others have just been single for a long time. It works as a coping mechanism when they find themselves feeling lonely at night.

Some say cuddling a pillow feels like cuddling the waist region of a human counterpart. The only difference is that the pillow doesn’t complain of all the discomforts you could experience what sharing the bed with another person like snoring, farting, etc.

Some people who hug pillows during their sleep also hug animals sometimes for just about the same reasons.

It’s A Habit

Ever hear the maxim “human beings are creatures of habit”. I believe people do change but to some extent, the maxim stands. Some parents cuddle their kids from a young age. And when they move into their own room, they get all sorts of stuffed animals for them.

From listening to bedtime stories and cuddling their parents to cuddling a stuffed animal when they sleep. When and if a sibling joins the family. Their parents let them share the same room and bed to avoid feeling lonely. So they hold each other in their arms while they sleep.

Some people might change, others might have a hard time adjusting to their present reality. A habit ingrained from childhood will be hard to stop and given the fact that there is nothing wrong with it. And there isn’t any negative effect to be scared of, they continue. After all, it is a healthy habit.

Guys Sleeping Positions With Pillows – How They Affect Your Health?

Some people do not care about how they sleep. They just lay in bed and wait to be taken away to the promised land. The worst part is that some folks find it hard to believe that the way they sleep can have a negative effect on their health.

Yet science has warned us time and time again that our style of sleep, the place we lay down to sleep, and whether or not we use a pillow can affect our health positively or negatively.

Symptoms such as neck, back, head, and chest aches can be connected to our sleeping pattern. Other negative symptoms include: waking up tired after a long night’s rest, mood swings, and difficulty focusing and completing daily tasks.

In some rare cases, how you sleep can cause some serious sleeping disorders like sleep apnea which can metamorphose into something worse like heart disease if left untreated.

Let’s look at the most popular sleeping positions and grade them from the best to the worst. There are four most popular sleeping positions according to research and statistics. Below is a rank from best to worst.

The Side Sleeping Position

In this position, people lay straight facing their sides. This is the most popular sleeping position and it is also the most healthy.

Also, it is the most comfortable. That is because it keeps your spine straight and if you are going to spend hours sleeping you should consider putting your spine in a position where it is comfortable.

Because the spine will be the number one cause of most of the possible pains you might experience after sleeping.

This position is ranked number one because when you put your spine into consideration, this is how it should be. Neck, shoulder, and back pain are all connected to the spine, and if you feel any pain in these regions when you wake up.

That is a sign that your spine was not placed in an elongated position. Your head and chest should face the same direction and your body, all the way from your head to your feet should be straight.

When you sleep like this, your body will be in a state of relaxation and your airways will most likely be unrestricted. I hope you can see how it helps those who have snoring issues.

Are Fleece Blankets Safe For Babies? [Answered]

Even those who snore very loud at night can greatly reduce the volume of their snoring by ensuring that their airways remain clear for as long as they will be required to pass air unconsciously.

People with persistent neck and backaches, arthritis, and acid reflux are advised by their doctors or sleep specialists to rest better by sleeping in this position.

Pregnant women are the ones who benefit most from this position, they should not sleep on their back because the weight would be too much on their backs.

Sleeping on their stomachs would be impossible and suicidal. But when they sleep on their sides, they can utilize the foam to share the weight of the baby and still manage to keep their spines elongated throughout the night.

Which is very important if they are in their second or third trimester. In these stages they begin to feel the full weight of the baby and if there is no chance for them to rest during the day.

They must rest well at night. In addition, sleeping on their sides will prevent swollen feet, improve kidney function and ensure that there is perfect blood flow to the placenta.

When sleeping on your side, you should ensure that your head is resting on a pillow that is not hard. Although you do not need it hugging a cuddle pillow will provide better support for your lower back, hips, and pelvis.

The side position is the most popular (thankfully) and it is the best, backed by scientific data, study, and research.

The Supine Sleeping Position

When sleeping in this position, people lay on their backs instead of their sides. Whilst elevating their heads with a pillow so that it doesn’t stay at the same level as their shoulders.

This is the second most popular sleeping position and it has both positive and negative effects on health. On the positive side, it places the spine in its natural position and when the spine is in its natural position, head, shoulder, neck, and backaches cannot be a problem.

As I have hinted before, you should ensure that your spine is in a comfortable position before you shut your eyes and spend hours lying like that.

You will save yourself tons of pain that way. Due to the position of the head, this sleeping position is regarded as the second-best in the hierarchy.

Because it can help to reduce the terrible symptoms of acid reflux. It can help with that burning pain in the chest that all sufferers can relate to. But there is a downside to sleeping in this position.

When the pillow raises your head above your shoulders the tongue and certain tissues in the throat will be put in a position where gravitational force will pull them towards the airway. When this happens and there is an obstruction in the airway, the air is forced through unless the person will wake up to gasp for breath.

But before the air will make it through successfully to reach the lungs, there will be some vibration between the nose and the throat. These vibrations will produce a whistling, grumbling, snorting, or rattling sound.

This sound is what we hear when a person is snoring. So you see that sleeping in this position can encourage snoring or make it become worse in people who already snore.

Furthermore, it can also cause those with sleep apnea to suffer worse symptoms.

Also, it does not provide comfort for the lower back, and hugging a pillow is useless when you are sleeping like this. People who sleep on their backs might wake up with lower backaches which could restrict them when they want to bend down.

However, slipping a pillow under both knees will help if you enjoy sleeping in this position and don’t want to change. Now that we have weighed the benefits and disadvantages, I still recommend sleeping as instructed in number one.

Especially if you are a man or obese because a man or an obese person is more likely to snore in their lifetime when compared to other people.

Also, you should know that long-term snoring increases the risk of suffering all of the following health problems: sleep apnea, heart attack, stroke, and type 2 diabetes.

Laying On Your Stomach

This is the third kind, it’s not popular neither is it recommended. Only a small group of people, about seven percent of the entire population practice this position.

Everything about it is bad, where do I even start. There are no benefits to be obtained here. The middle of your body, from your chest to your abdominal wall is the heaviest part of your body.

Sleeping on it strains your back and your neck. Just as I said previously, you should make sure your spine attains comfort in your sleep to avoid certain kinds of aches when you wake up.

Sleeping like this will only cause your spine to overarch and this will lead to nerve issues if you continue to strain your spine over a long period of time.

Not to mention, the neck, back, and other pains that will come as warning signals from your spine.

To make it worse, some people turn their heads to one side, thereby limiting blood circulation and shrinking the size of the airway at the same time.

Although certain folks might not feel these symptoms after the first few tries, others wake up with regrets after suffering negative effects from what was supposed to be beneficial.

Not everyone who starts off sleeping like this is able to maintain this position till they wake up, there are cases where the body is smart enough to change its posture while the person remains unconscious.

If you sleep like this, don’t try to modify it, change it. This is supposed to be sleep, not torture.

The Fetal Sleeping Position

Although not as bad as the former one. This position is not popular and some consider it rare. In this sleeping position, people lay like they don’t have the whole bed to themselves.

They lay like they have been given the smallest space to sleep so they have to improvise and manage it to fit themselves. I don’t get how someone can be able to sleep like this for two hours, talk more a whole night.

In this sleeping position, the person lays like they are sleeping on the side but they curl themselves like a worm. They bend their knees so that it almost touches their face.

Sleeping like this is just as disadvantageous as resting your weight on your stomach. In this position, you strain your spine by bending yourself.

Your spine is supposed to remain straight when you sleep but here you bend your spine and your neck. You will suffer similar aches to the person above when you wake up.

And in the long run, similar consequences because sleeping in this position can limit air space and restrict breathing. When air struggles like that to get in, you will snore.

There are no ways to modify this sleeping position. If there is no space and you have to squeeze yourself to fit in, you might as well miss that nap and wait till you get home, then sleep comfortably.

The disadvantages clearly outweigh the benefits and you are just trying to give your body what it desperately needs.