The Hotel Nightmare
The real test of my new baseline came during a mandatory business trip. I checked into a nice hotel in Chicago. The room had a massive, king-sized “Heavenly Bed” with a pillow-top so thick it looked like a wedding cake. Three weeks ago, I would have dove into it with joy. Now, I looked at it with suspicion. I crawled in, and immediately, my body panicked. It felt unstable. My hips sank, twisting my spine. It felt like sleeping in a hammock made of jelly.
I tossed and turned for two hours. My lower back started to throb—the “old” pain was returning. It was the “Princess and the Pea” effect; I had become sensitized to alignment. At 2:00 AM, in a $300-a-night hotel room, I grabbed the duvet, threw it on the carpet, and slept on the floor. I woke up rested and pain-free. That was the moment I knew there was no going back. I wasn’t just “trying” this anymore; I had fundamentally changed how I slept.