Mama in the City

I get a lot of neck and shoulder aches, especially after working or sleeping post night shift but also just day to day too . I end up seeing my massage therapist pretty regularly and always have the same few complaints about my neck discomfort. It turns out that whenever I have good or bad stress in my daily life, I hide it all in the muscles of my neck and shoulders. The muscle tension is palpable to even the most untrained masseuse and causes me a lot of annoyance and overuse of ibuprofen.

The thing is, I know that a lot of this neck and shoulder pain is directly related to the flat feather pillow that I use. It is old and worn out and hasn't done the job in a long long time, at the same I'm super finicky about purchasing a brand new pillow to replace the old current one. I get pillow buying anxiety and worry about picking out the perfect pillow and making the wrong decision!

Right now in my linen closet I have at least 5 pillow rejects piled up, all from previous pillow purchases that went awry! There is an extra firm pillow, a super soft synthetic pillow, a water filled pillow that my husband picked up for me, and on and on. I can't seem to find the perfect pillow that gives me what I need! So, I just keep on using the expired pillow and wake up with a sore neck most times.

On my last attempt to buy a new pillow I went to the local box store and walked around testing out the various pillows, but the store doesn't give you the option to test drive it like most mattress shops do. They didn't seem too welcome to the idea of me lazing around on the display bed with a variety of pillows. So, I picked out the very best one and took it home and hated it right away; it was too big, it wasn't soft enough, the pillow made a 'crunchy' sound. So, back I went to my old deflated feather pillow and the continuing neck pain and the constant grumbling about the perfect pillow.

So, please tell me, how do you pick out the perfect pillow? How much do you spend on a pillow? I need all the tips that I can get, because apartment sized linen closet won't hold anymore of my reject pillows! Help!