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How to Choose a Pillow?
Do you know how to choose a pillow that suits your needs?
Often, when we start looking for our ideal sleep setup, we pay special attention to the mattress, but what about pillows?.
Below, we want to help you find the best pillow for every type of sleeper. So you can choose your pillow without mistakes, wherever you find yours.
Table of Contents
Why is choosing the right pillow so important?
If you've made it this far, it's because you want to know how to choose the right pillow to improve your quality of rest. But we also want to share some facts that show the scale and reach of this topic, which you might not have known...
- A good pillow, suited to your sleep needs, contributes to proper spinal alignment and helps prevent neck and back pain.
- All sleepers, but especially those who sleep on their side or on their back, need to fill the gap created between the mattress surface and the head, in order to prevent neck injuries and achieve greater pressure relief in the shoulder area.
- The highest quality of rest and the best comfort can only be achieved with a mattress that suits your needs and a pillow that helps maximize the benefits of that mattress.
Where do I start looking for my pillow?
To always get it right, we recommend taking this simple 2-question pillow-choosing test: What position do you sleep in most of the night: on your side, on your back, or on your front? and How firm is your mattress: soft, medium, or firm? By answering these, you'll be able to easily find the pillow that best fits you.
1. What's your sleeping position?
This is the first and most important factor. Every position has its pros and cons, but regardless of that, we all have our favorite sleeping position, and knowing which one it is is the perfect starting point for finding the best pillow for you.
2. How firm is your mattress?
The second thing you need to know or try to identify is your mattress's firmness. Put that way, it may sound more complex than it really is, but in practice it's very easy to figure out. More or less, we all know whether our mattress is Soft, Medium, or Firm.
Once you're clear on these two things, you can check out the guide below, which will help you choose the perfect pillow for your rest needs.
Guide to choosing a good pillow without getting it wrong
In the following video, a Colchón Exprés advisor briefly explains how to choose a pillow:
The best pillow for you
If you're looking for a quality pillow, below we show you a video where you can see the new Ingravity pillow range. After watching it, if you follow the guidelines explained below, you'll be able to choose the one that best fits you.
And as we said before, the only thing you need to keep in mind is your sleeping position and your mattress's firmness. Well, that's true. Here we go.
1. If you sleep on your side:
We'll start with this position, since it's the most common:
- If your mattress has a soft firmness: ...and is adaptable (meaning it molds to your body, as mattresses with thick layers of memory foam padding do), you should choose a very soft, low pillow that is above all breathable. In this specific case, rather than providing neck support and achieving the best possible spinal alignment — which is always necessary — the goal your pillow should meet is to offer cool, breathable support in the head area, aiming to reduce the "molding" effect that, in excess, can cause a feeling of stuffiness in some sleepers who run hot. In this case, a low fiber pillow or a soft, breathable, latest-generation memory foam pillow with a cooling effect are very good options. If, on the other hand, the mattress is not very adaptable (meaning that although soft, it doesn't sink, so the molding effect described above doesn't occur), the recommendation is similar in terms of height and firmness, but good adaptability is important. So a low memory foam or latex pillow is better in this case. Just don't ever forget breathability!
- If your mattress has medium or medium-high firmness, you'll need to choose a pillow with medium firmness and height. In this case too, breathability shouldn't be overlooked, for a cooler and healthier rest, but in terms of comfort, it comes down to personal preference. In fact, most pillows on the market are designed for this type of sleeper, since it's the most common. That's why there's a much wider catalog of pillows for this range. But watch out, because not all of them are the same! At Colchón Exprés, with the special needs of this type of sleeper in mind, we've designed a type of cervical pillow, nothing orthopedic, and whether you prefer the firmness of latex or of memory foam, we're confident that if you sleep on your side and your mattress has medium or high firmness, they can be a great fit for you. They are the YIN-in and the YANG-out.
- If your mattress has high firmness and isn't very adaptable, the pillow you choose should be tall and firm — the taller you are, the higher it should be. To give you a rough idea, the ideal thickness is the distance from the base of your neck to the tip of your shoulder (you can use a ruler or tape measure to check). And in terms of comfort, the goal is for the neck to stay aligned with the rest of the back, so it's best for the firmness to be high, but still adaptable and always very breathable.
2. If you sleep on your back:
While it's true that this is the position most recommended by dermatologists for people with excess oil in the skin, the truth is it's not as well suited for people who snore or suffer from sleep apnea... regardless of that, back to what concerns us here: choosing a pillow. For those who sleep on their back, the pillow should be:
- If you sleep on a soft, adaptable mattress, the recommendation is the same as for side sleeping on a mattress with the same characteristics. The pillow should be soft and low, but very breathable.
- If you sleep on a medium or high firmness mattress, the pillow should always be medium height, and firmness and adaptability, while medium is generally recommended, come down to personal preference — the firmer the mattress, the firmer the pillow can be. The goal should always be to achieve the best possible spinal alignment, and to help with that, a good trick for back sleepers is to line up the center of the shoulder with the ear. In both cases, breathability is again important for a cool, restorative sleep without a feeling of stuffiness. For this type of sleeper, the Termalfresh Medium-out pillow, made with exclusive-formula viscolatex and a cover with silver-thread 3D mesh fabric and Cooler-warmer fabric, is a highly recommended option.
3. If you sleep on your front:
According to a study published by the American sleep company Purple, 16% of the population sleeps on their front.
Unfortunately for this type of sleeper, this sleeping position is the least recommended of all, because while it's true that it reduces snoring, it's the position that puts the most strain on the back. It's also the one where the neck undergoes prolonged, constant rotation, which can therefore cause more stiff-neck issues and lower back pain.
Even so, many people can only imagine a perfect night's sleep on their front, so for all of them, here are some tips to help them rest better.
- First, regarding the pillow: when sleeping on your front on a soft mattress, the ideal place to put the pillow would be under the pelvis. Yes, you read that right, under the hip! If the mattress is very soft and adaptable, the part of the body that will sink the most is from the waist down. Because of this, the greatest spinal misalignment will occur in that area. If you place a pillow between the mattress and the pelvis, you'll slightly correct that misalignment and help relax the back more.
- If you sleep in this position on a medium-high or high firmness mattress (which, incidentally, is the most recommended for this position), it's best to use a low, soft pillow, like a children's pillow, under the head in this case. The goal it should meet is the same as for the other positions: minimizing spinal misalignment as much as possible.
4. If you need a cervical pillow
If you've recently had a neck injury, snore a lot, or have been advised to use a cervical pillow:, we can help you choose one too. In this case, it's important to know that your sleeping style will determine which model is best for you. For example, if you sleep on your back, our recommendation is the Medium-out Pillow, made from high-quality viscolatex with an ergonomic shape and a honeycomb core with a massaging effect. Whereas if you sleep on your side, you can choose the Termalfresh Yin-in Cervical Pillow or the Yang-out, both taller, with a notch to comfortably fit your shoulder and available in different firmness levels so you can pick the one that suits you best.
To achieve the perfect rest, choosing a mattress suited to our needs is just as important as choosing a pillow that does the same. If we compare our sleep setup to a vehicle, the mattress would be the cabin and the pillow would be the wheels. And who wants a brand-new car with worn-out tires?
Don't forget to take care of your pillow
And we can't finish this guide without a few quick tips on how to care for your pillow so it lasts as long as possible, in the best possible condition.
- Protect your pillow with a pillow protector. This may seem obvious, but many sleepers still aren't aware of it. If we protect our mattress with a mattress protector to keep liquids, sweat, or even bacteria from getting into the inner layers, why don't we see protecting our pillow as equally important? Especially since the core of a pillow is far less protected than that of a mattress, and everyday factors like facial sweat or saliva put our pillow to the test every night. There are many options on the market. Some, like Tencel ones with a breathable-waterproof treatment, are very soft, fully protect the pillow, and even allow you to sleep directly on the protector, just as you would with a regular pillowcase.
- Wash your pillowcase regularly. If you use a protector, you can wash it less often, since it acts as a physical barrier against dust mites and other elements that could compromise your pillow's hygiene. Even so, getting a pillow with a removable cover that's machine-washable will let you keep your sleep setup clean as often as you need, easily and effectively.
With these small tips, we hope we've helped you know how to choose a pillow, wherever you are. Now all that's left is to explore the models we've presented and find the one that best suits your needs.
Top 5 best pillows
The covers of these pillows are made with the exclusive Cooler-Warmer® fabric, which improves sleep quality all year round. On one side, the Summer Face, featuring Cooler® fabric, provides a long-lasting cooling sensation while helping to better regulate the temperature of the sleep surface. On the other side, the Warmer® Face allows for a cozier rest, without any feeling of stuffiness, and is perfect for the colder months.
1. Termalfresh Soft In Memory Foam Pillow
2. Termalfresh Medium Out Memory Foam Pillow
3. Termalfresh Firm In Memory Foam Pillow
4. Termalfresh Yin In Cervical Pillow
5. Termalfresh Yang Out Cervical Pillow
