Sleeping Away From Your Own Pillow

People sleep badly in hotels and guest rooms for a reason that is usually straightforward, and there are practical ways around it.

Why Hotel Pillows Rarely Work

They are chosen to look generous rather than to fit anybody. Most are soft, high and designed to be plumped into a shape for a photograph.

A soft high pillow collapses under a head and becomes a low one, which suits a back sleeper poorly and a side sleeper worse.

Add an unfamiliar mattress, which changes how far the shoulder sinks and therefore the gap to fill, and the pillow that worked at home is not the pillow you need there.

What Helps

• Ask at reception, since most hotels keep firmer options
• Fold a soft pillow in half to double the height
• Use a folded towel under a pillow to raise it
• Remove one of two stacked pillows rather than accepting both
• Or take your own, which is the reliable answer

Pillows that can be adjusted by removing layers, of the kind at nuzzle-pillows.com, travel more usefully than a fixed one, since they can be run flat for packing and set up on arrival.

Taking Your Own

Less eccentric than it sounds and common among people who travel frequently for work.

A pillow compresses into a bag, and a familiar one removes the largest variable in an unfamiliar room. Anyone with neck problems should consider it standard rather than fussy.

A Case Is Enough, Sometimes

The lighter version. Taking your own pillowcase gives the familiar fabric against your face without carrying a pillow.

It also addresses hygiene concerns about laundering standards, which people worry about more than they admit.

The First Night Effect

Worth knowing about. Research on sleep in unfamiliar environments describes a first-night effect, where sleep is lighter and more disturbed in a new place.

Part of what people blame on a pillow is simply being somewhere new, and it usually improves by the second night.

The Room, Not the Bedding

Temperature, light and noise account for a great deal of poor sleep away from home.

An eye mask and earplugs are smaller and cheaper than a pillow and frequently do more.

Aeroplane Pillows Are a Different Thing

Designed to stop a head falling sideways while upright, which is a different job entirely.

Do Not Buy a Second Pillow to Match

Two pillows stacked is not the answer to a low one.

Set It Up on Arrival

Five minutes on the first evening rather than discovering it at two in the morning.