To answer this I had to answer two questions:

1. What is a mattress for?

2. What is a pillow for?

1.  The mattress by definition is designed to give the body comfort while sleeping.  It can be hard or soft depending what you prefer to sleep on.  No matter which type of mattress you use we all require a support for our heads. 

For generations bed manufacturers have made square or rectangular pillows to enhance the bed and most people used these bed pillows to get head support so they could sleep.  We folded, scrunched, and mangled these pillows into our personal pillow support so we could sleep.  Since square always returns to square we continually reposition these pillows into support during our sleep.  This action happens over and over all night, tossing and turning, not getting a good sleep. 

2. A pillow by definition is a support.   There are so many types and shapes of pillows used for so many circumstances that I will limit this to pillows used for sleep support. 

A pillow designed for sleep support would have to be made so you did not have to fight it to give good head support.  It can not be square or rectangular; constantly returning to shape.   It should retain its shape and support throughout the hours while sleeping.  It must be soft but give comfortable support fitting the body structure and supporting the head weight.  If you are in a comfortable position with the head weight supported you will not toss and turn often. 

The first perfect sleep was recorded in China many centuries ago when the first Emperor demanded perfect sleep.  The solution was the head support.   They designed a head support with a wood block, a hole for the ear and a small pad to separate the face from the wood.   Everyone slept on hard wood surfaces so the wood block and many variations worked until the invention of the mattresses then sleep problems developed.

Today’s research shows why the head support worked.  Supporting the head weight and keeping the neck in alignment with the brain was the answer to getting a perfect sleep.  The perfect sleep now relies on a comfortable head support that also conforms to the modern mattresses.   Only one shape proved to work on the human body and conform to the mattress and that is; Round.

We spent our years perfecting our round sized sleeping pillows so you can get a great sleep each night on your chosen mattress.

ScienceDaily (Oct. 15, 2005) — Researchers at The University of Manchester funded by the Fungal Research Trust have discovered millions of fungal spores right under our noses — in our pillows.
Aspergillus fumigatus, the species most commonly found in the pillows, is most likely to cause disease; and the resulting condition Aspergillosis has become the leading infectious cause of death in leukaemia and bone marrow transplant patients. Fungi also exacerbate asthma in adults.
The researchers dissected both feather and synthetic samples and identified several thousand spores of fungus per gram of used pillow – more than a million spores per pillow.
Fungal contamination of bedding was first studied in 1936, but there have been no reports in the last seventy years. For this new study, which was published online today in the scientific journal Allergy, the team studied samples from ten pillows with between 1.5 and 20 years of regular use.
Each pillow was found to contain a substantial fungal load, with four to 16 different species being identified per sample and even higher numbers found in synthetic pillows. The microscopic fungus Aspergillus fumigatus was particularly evident in synthetic pillows, and fungi as diverse as bread and vine moulds and those usually found on damp walls and in showers were also found.
Professor Ashley Woodcock who led the research said: “We know that pillows are inhabited by the house dust mite which eats fungi, and one theory is that the fungi are in turn using the house dust mites’ faeces as a major source of nitrogen and nutrition (along with human skin scales). There could therefore be a ‘miniature ecosystem’ at work inside our pillows.”
Aspergillus is a very common fungus, carried in the air as well as being found in cellars, household plant pots, compost, computers and ground pepper and spices. Invasive Aspergillosis occurs mainly in the lungs and sinuses, although it can spread to other organs such as the brain, and is becoming increasingly common across other patient groups. It is very difficult to treat, and as many as 1 in 25 patients who die in modern European teaching hospitals have the disease.
Immuno-compromised patients such as transplantation, AIDS and steroid treatment patients are also frequently affected with life-threatening Aspergillus pneumonia and sinusitis. Fortunately, hospital pillows have plastic covers and so are unlikely to cause problems, but patients being discharged home – where pillows may be old and fungus-infected – could be at risk of infection.
Aspergillus can also worsen asthma, particularly in adults who have had asthma for many years, and cause allergic sinusitis in patients with allergic tendencies. Constant exposure to fungus in bed could be problematic. It can also get into the lung cavities created by tuberculosis which affects a third of the world’s population, causing general ill-health and bleeding in the lung, as well as causing a range of plant and animal diseases.
Dr Geoffrey Scott, Chairman of the Fungal Research Trust which funded the study, said: “These new findings are potentially of major significance to people with allergic diseases of the lungs and damaged immune systems – especially those being sent home from hospital.”
Professor Ashley Woodcock added: “Since patients spend a third of their life sleeping and breathing close to a potentially large and varied source of fungi, these findings certainly have important implications for patients with respiratory disease – especially asthma and sinusitis.”

Many social problems could begin with poor sleep.  Poor sleep has been proven over and over again by many researchers in many fields, proving you can’t think straight, you can’t solve simple problems when you don’t sleep properly, but none related their research to social problems.

I spent the last 15 years studying sleep, analyzing research from researchers on many different angles including how sleep affects families and their social reaction to everyday life.  No formal research has been done in this area because sleep is not thought to have an affect on our social life.  Solving social problems came from reports from satisfied clients who stressed they were waking up in a good mood and not as stressed out on last nights problems.   

With studies at Universities showing students can’t think straight, can’t answer simple questions if they don’t sleep; can you imagine how a family copes with a social problem if they can’t sleep?  The problem is keeping them from sleeping and without sleep the arguments increase dramatically.  They wake with the argument still fresh and now they are more agitated by lack of sleep the problem gets worse and each day it escalates.

Lack of a deep sleep is our number 1 social and health problem.  The health part is backed by many formal researchers worldwide including a researcher who proved that without sleep we develop illness and our organs die therefore we die.  All life revolves around sleep.

My specialty is the practical aspects of what we need to sleep.  There is only one common denominator causing poor sleep and that is the bed pillow.  I spent the last 15 years studying why a sized unique pillow was solving almost all sleep problems. 

Not getting a decent amount of sleep is something that all of us have complained about at some point in our lives. Sometimes its noisy neighbors that keep us up, or perhaps there’s something on your mind that you just can’t seem to get out of your head. There are all sorts of reasons why you might be suffering from a lack of sleep, but unless you do something to solve the problem you are risking your health.

Sleep is a basic physiological need, just like water to drink, food to eat, and air to breathe. Without proper sleep we cannot survive. Just like suffering from malnutrition because of not eating enough, if you don’t sleep enough a variety of health complications can arise. Some of the most common ailments linked with lack of sleep are high blood pressure, weight gain, and a decrease in the power of your immune system.

Reasons to Get the Sleep You Need

There are some very important reasons why all of us need to get the sleep that we need, and the health benefits of the correct amount of sleep may surprise you.

Staying in a Good Mood

One of the most common effects people feel when they do not get enough sleep is that they are in a bad mood. You become more irritable and impatient, and even the smallest thing can really get on your nerves. When you are at work, you will probably find it hard to concentrate, communicate effectively with colleagues, and be productive. Worst of all, you may feel too tired to do the things you like in your spare time.

Keeping Safe

Every day we put ourselves in potential danger without even really realizing it, like crossing the road or driving to the shops. If lack of sleep is making you feel forgetful or affecting your attention, you could end up in a serious accident.

Being Healthy and Fit

When you sleep your body has time to relax and repair itself, and your immune system relies on sleep to operate correctly. In other words, the good cells in your body find it more difficult to protect your body against attacks when you do not get enough sleep. In addition, getting enough sleep may help your body fight cancer. Your levels of fitness are also affected by lack of sleep, and there is evidence to suggest that sleep disorders can bring on hypertension, cause an irregular heartbeat, and increase stress hormone levels.

The Ability to Learn

Without enough sleep your brain will find it harder to remember new things that you have learnt. In clinical tests is has been noted that people who get more sleep perform better in memory tests.

Staying the Correct Weight

Depending on your height and age, there is an optimal weight you should be. When you don’t get enough sleep your body does not process and store carbohydrates properly, and this can lead to increased weight gain, Lack of sleep can also have an adverse effect on your appetite.

The Key to Good Sleep

Ass you can see, there are plenty of ways that your health can be affected by lack of sleep, and if you are unwell it could well be down to not getting enough sleep. Doctor’s regularly advise patients who complain of pain, headaches, and other common ailments to take some painkillers, stay in bed, and get some rest, which is sometimes all that is needed. The importance of sleep has never been more of an issue than now, with our busy urban lives and so many distractions around us.

Being comfortable and relaxed is key to getting enough sleep, and many studies have been conducted to see what really contributes to getting enough sleep. One of the most important aspect of good sleep in the right head support, and here at Align Right that is what we specialize in. We firmly believe that finding the right type of head support could be the answer to your ailment.

Getting a correctly sized sleeping pillow can make the world of difference when you lie down at night and try to doze off. It helps to support your head and neck, and contributes to putting your body in a good posture so that you do not wake up feeling stiff or with muscle pains. Many people do not realize that pillows lose their shape and effectiveness at supporting your neck and head over time, and that they do need to be replaced. Everybody is different, and a pillow that is right for one person may not be right for another, so getting a pillow sized especially for you is the surest way that you will sleep comfortably and avoid the health risks associated with lack of sleep.

Using his research we can interpret that during sleep our body must produce something that heals each organ but how?  What could produce this healing?  How would it know what to heal and how much is required?  These questions lead me out of the sleep field and into brain research.  There I found the answers to sleep and why the body must be in alignment during sleep. 

History research found that perfect sleep was solved over 2,000 years ago by a Chinese Emperor. ( Britannica Enc)  The answer was in the head and neck support.  All Chinese slept on solid surfaces like wood platforms with thin mats to separate the body from wood.  This perfect sleep support was a block of wood with padding and a hole for the ear.  These blocks were costly to make as they had to fit each person and be adjusted almost weekly as the body changed.  These were limited to those who could afford one.   The masses then wanted perfect sleep so the husk bag was developed for them.  It was cheap and needed nightly adjustments therefore all could get the perfect sleep.  It kept their necks in alignment while sleeping on hard surfaces.

Modern chiropractic research shows that the brain connects to the body through the neck area therefore could the brain be the creator of the help for our organs nightly?  *** Research

Through brain research I found the answer to why we sleep.  By keeping the brain in alignment with the body; the brain would check the body for help required and how much.   The sleep cycle explains how the brain would do this. *explained in my book.

With this new understanding we see that body alignment to the brain is necessary and the answer to perfect sleep.  So why do we have a poor sleep problem?

If the head and neck support was the answer then what is causing our modern day sleep problems as we have all kinds’ mattresses, bed pillows (that we scrunch all night), many molded form pillows and many innovative sleep supports; so why can’t we get good deep sleep?  CNN News proclaimed poor sleep the #1 health problem today (1998)

Looking back at the Emperor’s support I found that it worked on hard surfaces and today we all use mattresses.  Is the softer support causing a problem and why?  What could give support and conform to all mattresses?  Was it possible to fit and support all people? 

Everyone is so unique in body structures, sleep habits and all use different mattresses?   What could keep the head and neck in alignment with comfortable support while conforming to each individual and all mattresses?  The answer took many years to understand why the shape and size of a round pillow was the answer to body alignment while sleeping and the answer to getting perfect sleep in our modern age. * research

          A round pillow filled the requirement as round conforms on both sides.  The Align-Right pillow is named for what it does; aligns the body to the brain while sleeping.   Our pillows are one product where size does matter.

Jim Blondin   www.alignright.com

*Research:

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A research doctor who kept animals from sleeping for 6 – 30 months discovered this.  His study was trying to make another point, “Lack of sleep won’t harm you”.

 Here are his words from Scientific American.com: Ask the Experts: Biology: (on the internet)

“Another rare disorder, Fatal Familial Insomnia (FFI), is an autosomal dominate disease that is invariably fatal after about 6-30 months without sleep.  FFI is probably misnamed because death results from multiple organ failure rather than sleep deprivation.”

Another rational interpretation would be:

If death resulted from organ failure after withholding sleep; then sleep is necessary for the health of our organs without which we die!

“Lack of sleep did not kill the animals; they all died of organ failure”!

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*Encyclopedia Britannica  - “perfect Sleep”

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*Canadian National News report in 1998 stating poor sleep is our #1 health problem worldwide.

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*Clinical testing on pain reduction (1996) plus thousands of consumer testimonials on help received with sleep problems.

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*Chiropractic research: on neck alignment

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* Book “Sleep Right or DIE Early” on web site www.alignright.com

The first recorded sleep device (pillow) was invented in China about 2,000 years ago when the Emperor demanded the perfect sleep!  (Britannica)  The perfect device was a “block of wood – shaped and padded to the face with a hole for the ear.”  You would not call a block of wood a pillow would you; but it fit the definition of a device used for sleeping.  Only the rich could afford this product as it had to be adjusted weekly due to increase or decrease in body structures.

This device proved that a pillow support is the answer to the perfect sleep.

The common bed pillows can be traced back to the second product designed for the Emperor’s people.  A husk filled bag that could give good support but had to be molded several times each night.  Both products gave a great sleep on very hard surfaces, as everyone, including the Emperor, slept on a wood platform with a thin rattan mat.

Since the modern invention of the mattresses; sleep problems started increasing.  Then the invention of the therapeutic designs of Foam pillows in an attempt to solve sleep problems actually increased them.  (Tracking government sleep statistics) 

Today’s mattresses, always softer than the hard wood, allow the body to sink into them.   Now the pillows must conform to the body and the mattress.   There is only one shape that conforms on both sides; round.  This understanding came when we took our round sleeping pillows camping; we woke with neck pain.  Shoulders and body did not sink into the ground like it did in our mattress.

Before the round pillow we fought our bed pillows into needed support by scrunching folding them.  This act kept us from reaching deep sleep early; expelled the bacteria and dust mites into our air space, continually kept us in a sick state.  Since sleeping on the round pillows I have had very few neither colds (they go away over night) nor respiratory health problems.

The round pillow is the modern perfect sleep device.

Over 50 years ago I remembered an article about researchers doing studies on stress and the common cold.  They found a relationship to poor sleep causing a cold.   Lack of sleep and stress caused the body to develop cold symptoms.  One sleep research in the UK found that single people seldom caught colds but after marriage they commonly caught colds.

Thinking this out with the brain research, I came to understand that the common cold is a way for the brain to make you sleep.  The brain wants to heal your body (do its job) but you won’t let it so it forces you to rest and sleep by giving you a cold.  Many doctors often told patients with a cold to “take two aspirin and get some sleep”.  They knew sleep healed the common cold.

Yes you can pick up a cold from another person but it won’t last long if you get a deep sleep.   The common cold is a 24-hour bacterium that we re-infect (through pillows) ourselves with each night until it dissipates.

Funny things happen when raising children.  Children playing with others pick up a cold and bring it home.   In trying to sleep but can’t, they move in with mom and dad.  Germs now go into parents pillows.  Soon parents breathe in the cold germs.  Now you spread the germs to your partner and back to the child again.  That is why colds last several weeks in a house with children.

Infected pillows should be kept separate or at least put through a hot dryer daily.  Many times we lay the child on the couch pillows and now everyone gets the cold.

Read the research papers: Science Daily (Oct. 15, 2005)

Pillows: A Hot Bed of Fungal Spores by Researchers at the University of Manchester, UK

Page is in my book on www.alignright.com

I spent the last 15 years studying sleep, analyzing research from researchers on many different angles including how sleep effects families and their social reaction to everyday life.  No formal research has been done in this area because sleep is not thought to have an effect on our social life.  Solving social problems came from reports from satisfied clients who found that they were waking up in a good mood and not as stressed out from last night’s problems.

With studies at universities showing that students can’t think straight, and can’t answer simple questions if they don’t sleep, can you imagine how a family copes with a social problem if they can’t sleep?  The problem is keeping them from sleeping, and without sleep the arguments increase dramatically.  They wake with the argument still fresh in their minds, and now that they are more agitated by lack of sleep, the problem gets worse, and each day it escalates.

Lack of a deep sleep is our number 1 social and health problem.  The health part is backed by many formal researchers worldwide including a researcher who proved that without sleep we develop illness and our organs die, therefore we die.  All life revolves around sleep.

My specialty is in the practical aspects of what we need to sleep.  There is only one common denominator causing poor sleep, and that is the bed pillow.  I spent the last 15 years studying why a unique sized pillow was solving almost all sleep problems.

This understanding came about by accident.  At first I wanted to solve my wife’s neck related sleep problem; then others found help through our pillow.  I asked doctors why a pillow solved the many sleep problems but they said it could not be the solution; it had to be drugs.  Drugs were killing my wife – so drugs were not the answer.  Why?  The more testimonials came in, the more I became interested in why?   It became an obsession as no one understood sleep or what a pillow was for.  I had to find out.

I asked myself the question “Why me?” I am not a doctor or a researcher.  During research I found the answer was in my past.  I had training in the areas required for me to understand sleep where others could not.  I put my research and interpretations into a book online called “Sleep Right or DIE Early”.  This is a free download, as the information on how important sleep is to everyone is more important than making money.  Money cannot buy you health.  Deep sleep is where the body rejuvenates itself each night, making you healthy.

I like having money to pay the living expenses but having too much money leads to health problems as many celebrities and rich people have found.  Having a love for life, love for your job, love for your family, love for your spouse, and having a healthy respect and desire to help others through what you can do – this is MY right way to live.

My mission and my company’s mission are to help people live healthier lives through sleeping in alignment.  Aligning the body to the brain through a neck support is the only way to good health.

Jim Blondin

The right pillow is the most important thing you need to have for a great sleep.  A pillow is used to give your brain an unrestricted direct connection with your body.  To do that it must fill your “Sleep Triangle” with comfortable support.  It must keep your brain in alignment to your body structure through your neck area.  Proper neck alignment is necessary for your physical and mental health.

Research has proven that our organs shut down if we don’t get a deep sleep.  Other researchers are finding that illnesses are linked to poor sleep, and poor sleep is directly related to poor pillows, which are directly related to poor health.

Imagine your brain not having connection to your right leg or to your left arm; how would you feel or walk?   The brain heals our body at night while sleeping and if it can’t contact different organs to heal them then they will develop an illness and we will die.  The brain even controls high blood pressure.

With this understanding why do the modern day medicine men and women not promote neck alignment?  Doctors have known for generations that the body heals itself but why are they not allowed to recommend neck alignment?

A sized sleeping pillow will keep your neck in alignment for the time the brain needs to heal your body.   If you toss and turn a lot, scrunch, fight or fold your pillow, then you are not getting a deep sleep.  Without keeping your neck in alignment and receiving deep sleep, you will get sick.

I spent over 15 years researching and testing sizes of pillows so that you can live a healthy, longer life.  We even measured peoples’ “Sleep Triangle” and produce charts for side and back sleepers.

Our mission is to help people live healthier lives through sleeping in alignment.

Jim Blondin

President

Align-Right Pillow Company