A massager works the muscle on the surface of your neck. That's useful, and it's all it can do. This has an air bladder built into the pillow that inflates underneath you and lifts your skull at a 26° angle — that's traction, and it reaches the joints the muscle is wrapped around. The heat and the massage are in here too. The lift is the part nothing else on your nightstand has.

Your neck carries the weight of your head every waking hour, and the joints between the vertebrae take that load. When the bladder inflates, it lifts your skull and holds it — so for thirty minutes that load comes off and the space between those joints opens instead of compressing. The heat does the other half. Muscles that have spent years guarding a sore joint won't let go while they're cold.

A collar holds your head still. It works, and most people can only stand it for twenty minutes before it's worse than what they started with. Over-the-door traction rigs work too, and almost nobody uses them twice — you have to hang your head in a harness. This is a pillow. You lie down on it and it does the work while you're horizontal, which is the only version of this anybody actually keeps doing.

Lie flat on a firm surface — the floor, a mat, or a mattress that doesn't sink. Put it under your neck so the curve sits where your skull meets your spine, and hold the Auto button for five seconds. It runs traction, heat and massage together for thirty minutes and shuts itself off. Start at five minutes for the first few nights and build up. Most people use it before bed.

Yes. Press Manual instead of Auto and you can run any one of the three on its own. Some people want the full cycle every night. Some only want heat on a stiff morning, or only the lift. If there's a reason you shouldn't use traction, this is the setting that matters — you decide exactly what your neck gets and what it doesn't. If you're under care for a neck condition, ask your doctor before you start.

Most people feel the lift the first time they use it — the weight comes off and the neck feels longer. What matters more shows up over the following weeks of using it nightly: mornings that don't start stiff, and turning your head without thinking about it first. It works while you're lying down, so using it every night is what does the work.

Use it for a full 30 nights. If your neck doesn't feel looser, lighter and easier to turn, email us and we'll refund your first order. No questions asked, no hoops.