After investing in your hammock the next big question is where and how you are going to hang it. The following information aims to help you make that process as simple as possible. Firstly in terms of the hammock itself I propose that there are two main ways that you can hang the hammock. The two ways are really dependent on how close the ends (eyes/hoops) of the hammock are together. Having the two eyes closer together results in a more (i) U shaped hammock and having them further apart results in a more (ii) horizontal or flatter shaped hammock.
Both of these options have their advantages and disadvantages. The hammock purist or enthusiast way of hanging the hammock is option (i) in the more prominent U shape. This method of hanging your hammock requires less horizontal distance between the two eyes as they are closer together but requires more height to be available as the hammock sags lower in the middle. The reason the purists like this method is that the sagging of the hammock in the middle allows the hammock material to be more slack and therefore more comfortable to lay in.
The second method (ii) is the more common way of hanging the hammock that you see all over the world and it too has its advantages. The method of hanging the hammock with the eyes/hoops lower on the horizontal requires less height and that is the reason this method is used in most of the commercially available hammock stands worldwide. The person using the hammock ends up in a more laying down type position. You require less height but more distance between the two objects (trees) that you intent to hang the hammock from. With this option the material of the hammock is more taut.
An advantage of the more taut material that I have discovered is that you are less likely to snag something on your woven material hammock. This may be beneficial if you are intending to let kids play in the hammock. Even though we do our best to emphasis as much as possible that you should not use the hammock when wearing clothing, shoes or jewellery that can snag on the threads of the hammock it envitabitly can happen from time to time especially if you are letting kids use the hammock. Having the hammock hung in this more taut position makes the threads or yarns less available to be caught on and pulled by the forementioned items.
In terms of how you lay yourself in the hammock again opinion is divided. The purists say that you should lay (a) diagonally across the hammock or even perpendicular across it. Most people who have never used a hammock before will intuitvely lay (b) straight down the middle parallel to the direction that the hammock is hung. I will preface this information by saying that both methods are fine but personnally I do prefer to lay across the hammock at an angle.
If we take our two methods of hanging the hammock we can then implement the best method of positioning ourselves inside the hammock. With option (i) where the ends of the hammock are closer together and the material is more slack it makes sense that the purists prefer to lay across the hammock rather that straight down the middle. The first reason being that if you lay down the middle in this position your body becomes shaped in a U where your feet and head are almost touching each other (that’s an exaggeration but you get the point). Also if you put your legs completely together in this position what you will find is that the hammock material that you are laying on becomes completely taut and feels hard to lay on because it doesn’t have room to stretch as it is essentially being pulled down vertically in the middle from the weight of your body given that its ends are higher up in this U position. Therefore laying across the hammock at an angle will give you the best result in that you will get more comfort from the slack material and also you are using more of the width of the hammock and we all know how it feels to stretch across the width of a double bed compared to being limited to a straight position in a single bed.