Four Health Considerations When Buying New Pillows

Don’t brush off the choice of a pillow as something too trivial to deserve your attention. The kind of pillow you use determines your sleep quality, which, in turn, influences your productivity at work or at school. Also, your pillow can save you from some health issues or lead you to others. So, it’s important to take time to understand exactly what type of pillow you should buy.

Here are four major health factors you need to take into consideration when buying pillows:

• Breathability

Naturally, you need a dark and cool room to ensure you sleep soundly throughout the night. If you want darkness, it’s as simple as switching off all lights and having thick, opaque blinds on your windows. To make your bedroom cool, you can consider using air conditioners, installing fans, using a wet blanket, and freezing your bedsheets. 

However, these efforts aren’t complete without sleeping on a pillow designed to allow plenty of air to pass through it. A pillow that traps heat will make you hot, sweaty, and quite uncomfortable for the most part of the night.

The breathability of pillows is chiefly determined by the type of filling material and the density of filling. A less dense filling promotes breathability. The most breathable materials out there include polyester, shredded foam, and buckwheat hulls.

Buckwheat hulls, which is also called a Sobakawa pillow, are especially effective in promoting a cooling effect because of the large air spaces between the individual hulls.

• Head, Neck, And Shoulder Support

Medical experts rightly claim that when your neck bends in any way for a couple of hours, you’re likely to experience neck pain. Because of this, you’d want a pillow that keeps your neck in a straight position as possible.

To get such a pillow, you first need to know your general sleeping position; different positions require different pillow types. Here are the most common sleeping positions along with the recommended pillow type:

• Back sleepers: Go for a low-density pillow since your head and neck need minimal support.
• Side sleepers: In this position, your shoulder rests on the mattress, causing your neck and head to be elevated. Therefore, consider buying a medium-density pillow that gives enough support to your head and neck. This way, your neck doesn’t overextend sideways.
• Stomach sleepers: Choose a soft and low-density pillow since your face rests on the pillow.

Perhaps you’re wondering what kind of pillow to choose if you’re one of those people who change their sleeping positions every now and then. If this is the case, you need a pillow that allows you to adjust the density of the filling material to suit your current sleeping position.

Basically, these come with a zipper that allows you to remove some of the filling material to make the pillow less dense or add more filler material to make the pillow denser. Here’s a video illustration of such kinds of pillows https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAORufo9Kq0

• Allergies

You ought to be careful with the filler material for your pillow and the material used for the pillowcase. Remember, allergies involve the infection of your nasal passage with allergens. Since your nose is usually in direct or close contact with the pillow, you may readily pick allergens from the pillow. 

As such, you may want to avoid pillows filled with down feathers. In addition to that, ensure that the pillowcase is dustproof or hypoallergenic so you can reduce the chances of dust building up in the filler material.

• Other Special Health Conditions

When you get pregnant, for instance, your normal head pillow won’t suffice for the night. For one reason, your constantly increasing stomach size and weight may make sleeping quite uncomfortable. Fortunately, there are specialty pregnancy pillows in the market designed to provide adequate support for your body.

Sleep specialists not only stock pregnancy pillows but also a wide range of other specialty pillows to cater for issues such as:

• Back pain
• Knee pain
• Neck pain
• Sinus complications
• Acid reflux
• The need to sit upright on your bed like when you’re reading 

In Summary

Pillows are an essential part of mastering the art of sleep. Good sleep, like many other things in life, doesn’t come automatically. In fact, in the US alone, 35% of adults are sleep-deprived. And this costs the country USD$411 billion annually.

So, you need to make a conscious effort to ensure that you get quality sleep every night. Get yourself the most comfortable pillow and start enjoying sleep as you should.

(Devdiscourse's journalists were not involved in the production of this article. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of Devdiscourse and Devdiscourse does not claim any responsibility for the same.)