My wife recently returned from a trip to Mexico.
“There it is. My water pillow! I missed it!” she said, excited. There was a level of fondness there for the pillow I hadn’t heard before.
“You missed it?” I said. “What?”
At the time she said this, she had just returned home and had come into our bedroom for the first time. I heard all about her trip with our son. There was the fishing and all the fish she caught when in the ocean; the fresh seaside air; the cenotes where other little fish had nibbled her toes; the funny things our friends had done.
Her trip sounded like everything you want a vacation in coastal Mexico to be.
“Was the pillow at the resort lumpy?” I said, teasing.
“No, it was your standard, puffy pillow,” she said. “The mattress was good too.”
Then there was a hammock that I saw a picture of.
“That was fine too,” she said.
As nice as that stuff was, she still missed home and her water pillow.
I believed her.
Someone who owns one might not think about it every day. Anyone could take it for granted. But, I understood. My water pillow is awesome too.
Water pillows have one big negative…
Water pillow negative: heavy and not made for travel
Not all products are perfect for every situation.
The water pillow, for example, isn’t good for travel, not the way a small head or neck pillow might be.
Filled with just the right amount of water to be supremely comfortable on a bed, the water pillow is on the heavier side when compared with a regular pillow. There are, after all, baggage limits on planes.
The thought of taking it on vacation borders on the ridiculous.
It’s meant to be set up and left alone.
The person taking the water pillow with them on vacation would have to drain the water out as best he or she could. Then they’d want to dry it out as best they could in the plastic bladder. Then they’d have to fill it to their favorite fullness level specification when they got to their destination.
There’s also a spout that comes with the pillow that enables you to loosen the plug and tighten it when you need to.
When you got to the destination, you’d have to set it up and take it down again for your return — setting it up when you return.
If you didn’t do that, you’d blast right through the weight limit on planes.
It’s just not the pillow you want to bring with you on vacation.
It wasn’t designed with traveling in mind.
On the other hand, a pillow like the Trtl Travel Pillow is.
The Trtl has a completely different design. It’s thin and supports the neck in a completely different way.
Most people, of course, don’t pack any pillow. With airline luggage limits these days, there are priorities.
The item gets heavy for a pillow, from 5-8 pounds (2.2-3.5 kilograms).
Our water pillows are filled with 4-5 quarts of water (about 4 liters). When I was setting it up, I followed the directions as to how to get the air out. Nevertheless, it still makes a faint sloshing sound when you move it. If it gets turned over, you can feel the hard, plastic port on the opposite side.
Yes, it’s a very comfortable pillow. But when you compare it to all of the amenities available at a resort, why the heck would you miss it?
It was a resort after all.
The resort is paid-for pampering.
Sure the pillow is awesome at home, but surely the resort could offer amenities that would help it compensate. Massages. Somebody to tidy your room up after you. Outstanding meals. Things like that.
That’s when she told me the five reasons the water pillow is awesome.
Water pillow positives
A water pillow adjusts to you
Other pillows can be comfortable, sure. The water pillow, however, is perfectly comfortable. It’s an outstanding sleep gadget. Other pillows approximate your general size. No matter how good of a job they do, they’re always going to be slightly too big or too small. The water pillow will be just right.
There’s more than the simple absence of pain when it comes to feeling good. There are actually three states of feeling. There’s the state of pain. There’s feeling okay. Finally, there’s the last and best state: feeling great. A person can feel okay but if he or she does some light stretches, they can feel good, loose, vibrant, lively. Sleeping with a water pillow gets you closer to the “feeling great state” every day.
This ability to adjust helps you avoid or heal from neck pain.
You don‘t even have to have any neck pain. Everybody carries a lot of stress in their neck. The tightness can be subtle. With a perfectly adjusted pillow, this can go away.
Even on a vacation, there’s going to be a little stress. Stress, after all, is what keeps life interesting.
Sleep, however, isn’t about interesting. It’s about rest. The water pillow gets you closer to waking up feeling great every day.
They’re cooling
The benefits of sleeping cool are well documented. The water is covered by cotton and plastic but there still is more heat transference going on than there is with other kinds of pillows. This is going to result in benefits like allowing you to fall asleep faster, sleeping deeper and, just generally, fighting insomnia.
A water pillow isn’t as radical as sleeping on a gel pad either, a step that would take more getting used to, though but would take the benefits of sleeping cooly out a little further.
The water pillow is a start on the road to those benefits.
You’re just going to need to use a pillow case that transmits coolness.
They’re great for reading in bed when stacked with a conventional pillow
Our water pillow sits atop a conventional fiber-filled pillow when reading in bed. The water pillow disperses its weight across the top of the conventional pillow. This is suitable for a lot of different pillow positions. For example, the water pillow can be moved up, the conventional pillow can be positioned to support the cervical area and the water pillow can comfortably prop up the head.
Conventional pillows, of course, can be folded to prop up the head. This leads them to be lumpy after a while.
They cost about the same as any other high-quality pillow
With all of their benefits, this makes them a bargain.
They’re nothing like waterbeds
Many waterbeds are essentially water that’s been poured into a bag. It stands to reason a mattress like that is going to slosh around when you get in it.
A water pillow, however, is completely different. There’s no sloshing when you put your head on it. Rather, it merely adjusts to you and the position you wish to lay in.
While there is a bag of water in the middle of the pillow, it doesn’t feel anything like that. Water pillows don’t need a heater the way a waterbed does.
They help you dominate in a pillow fight
You’re hardly going to be able to block any blows by someone wielding a water pillow when you only have a soft, light conventional pillow!
Nothing is as sturdy as a heavyweight water pillow filled with five quarts of water! Smash!
Other points
Pillows with a water base are available with a number of different fillings in addition to the water compartment. Mediflow sells them made with foam, fiber, and gel. Every single one of them will help you avoid or heal from neck pain.
Do you have a water pillow? What do you think of yours? Tell us below.
For further reading:
Swimming can help you sleep like a log.
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