It may seem crazy, but for once I’m not going to write about poetry, the countryside, music or dance. I’m going to write about pillows. Trivial? Maybe. Give me a minute. (Try to stay awake…)

That’s because I want to share a weird little (but massive) discovery I made a few days ago. And the message of this post is: check your pillows – specifically, their height.

A few days ago, we had family coming to stay and we were distributing spare pillows in the various bedrooms. We have a mixture of feather-filled ones and foam ones. Personally I prefer to sleep on a feather pillow, but that’s not important. You may prefer otherwise.

We had one pillow left over, and instead of putting it away, Amanda said ‘Why not add it to the two you normally use and see if it’s comfortable?’

I did. It was a revelation. I realised in seconds that I was infinitely more comfortable with the somewhat higher three-pillow arrangement than I had been before with just two.

Settling down that night, I discovered very quickly that this was actually life-changing. I was hugely more comfortable, I slept better with fewer and shorter waking periods. My sleep since has been just infinitely better. It seems that for years – decades – I’ve been sleeping on pillows that were too low for complete comfort.

So the message is: try different numbers and heights of pillows. Add more, or take some away, experiment. See if your present arrangement is too low or too high, too hard or too soft. You’ll know immediately what feels good.

I recently read Matthew Walker’s excellent book Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams. A brilliant book and I highly recommend it. Full of good advice. But Dr Walker doesn’t say anything about pillows. He should. Anyway, now I have.

So that’s it. Call me Mr Pooter if you like. It may seem ridiculous. But I have the feeling that this is going to add years to my life. It’s certainly going to add hours of good quality sleep. Maybe it can help you too.