When I first started researching inclined sleeping, one of the things I didn’t really understand was that upper-body elevation and full-body incline aren’t necessarily the same thing.
I think that’s an easy distinction to miss. Before I discovered this concept, if someone had told me they were “sleeping on an incline,” I probably would have pictured a wedge pillow behind their back or an adjustable bed with the head raised.
That’s not how I’m sleeping.
With my setup, the 6-inch foam wedge is underneath my queen mattress. The entire mattress is therefore on a gradual slope from the head of the bed toward the foot. I’m still lying flat on my regular gel memory foam mattress—it’s the whole sleep surface that’s tilted.
That distinction became much more interesting to me as I started reading posts from people who were trying to elevate themselves with pillows or upper-body wedges.
Some describe feeling a bend or transition around the lower back or hips because their upper body is elevated while the lower portion of their body remains flat. Others talk about trying different pillows, toppers and positions to make that transition more comfortable.
That’s when I began to appreciate something about my own setup that I hadn’t really thought about when I bought it: there isn’t a transition point in my mattress.
My head, shoulders, hips, legs and feet are all resting on the same continuous sleep surface. My mattress isn’t bending me at a particular point; the mattress itself is simply sitting at an angle.
I’m not suggesting that one approach is automatically better for everyone. People elevate themselves for many different reasons, and individual comfort, physical conditions and medical considerations obviously vary. I’m simply describing the difference I’ve come to understand and why it matters to me.
It also helped explain something I mentioned in an earlier entry. When I first installed my 6-inch wedge and stood back to look at the bed, the incline seemed surprisingly dramatic. But when I actually got into bed, I barely noticed it.
I wasn’t lying on a foam wedge, I was lying on the same mattress I had been sleeping on all along.
As I’ve continued learning, I’ve also realized there are several ways to create a full-body incline. An under-mattress foam wedge like mine is only one of them. There are DIY approaches and purpose-built foundations as well, including adjustable versions.
I haven’t personally tried those other methods, so for now my firsthand experience remains limited to my fixed 6-inch under-mattress wedge. But understanding the difference between changing the position of part of the body and changing the angle of the entire sleep surface gave me a much clearer framework for everything else I was beginning to read.
And, as usual, understanding one thing just gave me a whole new list of questions to investigate…I think that’s the same for everyone. The more I learn about this and how sleep affects so much in our lives the more interesting it is for me.