Bolster pillow, also called hotdog pillow, is a very long pillow which is in fact a sleep essential for many, especially side sleepers. Hugging a bolster creates the right balance of comfort and support for a good night's sleep. In this blog post let’s discover the health benefits of sleeping with a bolster.

## Extra Long "Bolster pillow

"Bolster pillow" is a pillow that is long and cylindrical in shape. It's also popularly called "hotdog pillow", or "long pillow". It has the flexibility to be placed in a number of different positions to provide supreme comfort and support for your back, neck and legs. Especially for those who sleep on the sides, a bolster pillow offers an effective way to improve sleep quality and can become an essential part of any sleep routine. Because it can create a perfect balance of comfort and support. It's also the preferred pillow for pregnant women, who are recommended to sleep on their sides as well.

## Health Benefits of Bolster Pillows

### Improves your Posture
Sleeping with an [extra long bolster](https://krinto.com/products/elsa-x-long-bolster ) pillow drastically improves your alignment and encourages a healthy posture. For side sleepers and pregnant women, placing the pillow between your knees and hugging it with your arms decreases the “twist” that your spine is experiencing. The pillow provides the necessary support to keep your spine, hips, and neck aligned, alleviating tension for joints and encompassing muscles. This elevates comfort, relieves back pain, boosts circulation, and encourages healthy posture into the next day.

### Alleviates Tension on Joints

Sleeping on your side virtually puts the entire weight of your body on your shoulders, hips, and knees. By morning, the stress and pressure on the joints and muscles around these areas have built up, resulting in extreme discomfort. A bolster pillow can help by supporting your arms and legs, virtually relaxing your body by cutting down the stress on those sharp pain points.

### Provides Emotional Comfort

Feeling blue? Cuddling a soft object, even an inanimate one such as an extra long bolster, can be extremely comforting as it mimics a real hug. It lets off the “cuddle hormone”, officially termed Oxytocin, that contributes to producing feelings of calmness and relaxation, typically manifesting that warm feeling when embracing a loved one.

To describe it from a psychological viewpoint, Stephanie Silberman, a Florida-based licensed clinical psychologist, board-certified in sleep treatment, says: "People tend to be routine-oriented. If they act in a certain way and they grab a pillow every night, it's very comforting to them." A pillow is an object that can be "an environmental indicator" that reminds the brain it's time for bed and should start to settle down.

## The Sum Up

To sum up, a bolster pillow can infuse style into your bedroom settings. Interior designers like to add a bolster to the bed to pull everything together, making it look more dignified. To say in the end a pair of cozy pillows along with a comfy extralong bolster makes an assorted number of pieces which is more pleasing to the eye.