I thought I would start this journal because my experience with inclined sleeping has taken an unexpected path, and I’d like to document it as I continue learning.
I originally came to all of this simply as a consumer trying to sleep more comfortably. I had been dealing with hip and shoulder discomfort at night and, like so many people here, assumed the answer was finding the right mattress. I started researching mattresses, foundations, toppers, firmness levels and different ways of relieving pressure while sleeping.
Somewhere in that research I stumbled across the concept of full-body inclined sleeping.
Until then, when I heard about sleeping elevated, I pictured an adjustable bed or one of those wedge pillows that raises your upper body while your hips and legs remain flat. What caught my attention about full-body incline was that it was different: the entire mattress is placed on a gradual slope, so you’re still lying normally on your own mattress rather than bending at the waist over a wedge pillow.
That made me curious enough to try it.
I purchased a foam incline wedge and placed it under my existing mattress. This distinction ended up being important to me because I wasn’t sleeping directly on a piece of foam or giving up the feel of the mattress I already liked. My mattress remained my sleep surface; the wedge simply changed its angle.
My original motivation was pretty simple: I wanted to sleep better and hoped changing my sleeping position might help with the hip and shoulder discomfort I was experiencing.
What happened after I started sleeping inclined surprised me enough that I became genuinely interested in understanding why my experience seemed different. I noticed a meaningful improvement in my own hip and shoulder comfort, and that sent me down an entirely new research rabbit hole. 
I started reading more about full-body inclined sleeping, its history, different ways of creating an incline, and how it differs from simply elevating the upper body.
My enthusiasm eventually led me to contact the people behind Incline Sleep and Mattress Foundations. I had a lot of questions and wanted to understand more about what I was experiencing. Those conversations developed into a relationship with the companies, and I am now assisting them with some activities while continuing to educate myself about inclined sleeping.
I want to be completely transparent about that evolution because I originally discovered this entirely as a customer, but that’s no longer my only connection to the companies.
I’m also not going to present my personal results as proof that everyone will experience the same thing. I’m learning that there are important differences between my own experience, information provided by a company, and conclusions that can actually be supported by independent research. I hope to explore those distinctions as this journal develops.
Rather than trying to cram everything I’ve experienced and learned into one post, I’m going to build this journal over time. I’ll share my actual setup, what the first nights were like, what changed as I adjusted, what I’ve liked and disliked, things I’ve experimented with, and what I’ve learned along the way.
I also want to explore some of the questions I now have about inclined sleeping rather than pretending I already have all the answers.
If anyone is curious about something specific regarding my setup or experience, please ask. Your questions may actually give me some good subjects to research as I continue this journey. Thanks for reading! Tammy