Everything You Should Know About Memory Foam Pillows

To improve our sleep, we try out many things like exercise, and medication, and even buy memory foam pillows.

Scientifically we know, that a quality good night’s sleep increases our life expectancy along with various health and mental benefits. Therefore,

Therefore, a lot of ways can help a person to improve and enhance their sleep. Regarding that, one of the most effective ways to ensure good sleep is in bed and pillows. Well, in this case, not the ordinary pillows but the memory foam pillows are up to the task.

 However, most of us a hardly familiar with memory foam pillows. Thereby, I will acknowledge you with all the factors you must know about memory foam pillows. So, you’ll know how memory foam pillows will improve your sleep quality and quantity.

What Is Memory Foam?

Before knowing about memory foam pillows, let’s first know about what is memory foam.

Memory foam is a high-quality foam made of polyurethane and other consecutive materials.

Well, the main factors of memory foam are sensitivity to temperature, pressure, and shape-shifting ability. Therefore, the pillows can easily mold into the shape causing pressure on it. As well, it can revert to the original shape upon releasing the pressure.

Also, it consists of high viscosity and density. Therefore, memory foam will always restore its initial shape and will never flatten out.

That’s why, it is mostly used in cushions, insulations, mattresses, pillows, and even in aircraft seats. So, you can easily use it for comfort and other advantages for a long period.

Now, it’s time you know about what is a memory foam pillow and how it works.

How Does Memory Foam Pillow Work?

You already guessed that memory foam pillows are just sleeping pillows made of memory foam. Yes, that’s correct.

As for the ways memory foam pillows work, there is a lot to know. Well, memory foam pillows are designed to provide you the best comfort and ease to your body parts while sleeping.

Unlike common sleeping pillows, memory foam pillows will take shape according to your body pressure and will not keep your head upwards.

And of course, the pillow will simply return to its initial state after the pressure and temperature cool down.

By using this mechanism, the memory foam pillow will provide support to the head, neck, shoulders, and back. Also, it will ensure the reduction of pain or stiffness of the muscles and enhance sleep comfort.

Thereby, this also means that memory foam pillows are capable of accommodating your sleeping style and posture. 

Further, in many medical conditions like sleep deprivation, and muscle issues, the health experts will advise you to use memory foam pillows. 

What Is The Purpose of A Memory Pillow?

A lot of medical issues recommend using memory foam pillows to treat or prevent the consecutive condition.

Although some of us sleep on memory foam to experience a good night’s sleep, the majority of us use this to improve our health issues as well. 

Therefore, here are some purposes of a memory pillow:

• Increases sleep duration and quality.
• Prevent and decrease pressure point sprains.
• Helps to relieve pain in the spine, back, neck, shoulders, and head.
• Gets rid of any possibility of waking up with pains or soars.
• Enables you to sleep in any posture you like without any health issues.
• Provides therapeutic options for the ill, sick, or injured people.
• Comes in a variety of individual-purpose pillows.
• Long-lasting, cost-friendly, and has lots of health/mental benefits.

Thus, you can see many purposes that will lead you to use and prefer memory foam pillows.

How to Sleep on a Memory Foam Pillow?

Sleeping on a memory foam pillow can be a luxurious and supportive experience, but getting the hang of it might take some adjustment compared to traditional pillows. Here are some tips for different sleeping positions:

Back Sleepers:

• Choose a flatter pillow: Back sleepers need less loft (height) than side sleepers. Aim for a pillow that keeps your spine naturally aligned so your head isn’t tilted too far back or forward.
• Use the flat side: Many contoured memory foam pillows have two sides. Use the flatter side for back sleeping so your head has even support.
• Hug the pillow: Some back sleepers enjoy hugging a thin memory foam pillow for extra comfort and neck support.

Side Sleepers:

• Choose a thicker pillow: Side sleepers need more loft to fill the gap between their shoulder and ear and keep their spine aligned. Look for a pillow that cradles your head and neck comfortably.
• Use the contoured side: If your pillow has a curved side, place it with the higher end, cradling your neck and lower end supporting your head.
• Adjust the height: Experiment with different pillow heights until your chin is in a neutral position, not tilted up or down.

Stomach Sleepers:

• Use a thin pillow: Stomach sleepers generally need the least loft. Opt for a very thin pillow or even no pillow at all to avoid straining your neck.
• Try alternative positions: Sleeping on your stomach isn’t the ideal position for spinal alignment. Consider experimenting with side or back sleeping for better posture and comfort.

General Tips:

• Give it time: Memory foam can take some time to adjust to your head and neck shape. Be patient and try different positions and heights until you find what works for you.
• Fluff or knead the pillow: If your pillow feels flat or uncomfortable, fluffing or kneading it can help reactivate the memory foam and restore its shape.
• Keep it clean: Wash the pillowcase regularly and consider purchasing a washable inner cover for the pillow itself.

4 Reasons To Sleep On A Memory Foam Pillow

The overall support you get from using memory foam pillows enables you to sleep in the perfect alignment for your pressure points and spine. Besides, no matter how you sleep, you will never wake up with a body with soar and pain.

In case you have doubts about which reasons you should sleep on a memory foam pillow. Hence, here are the 4 reasons you should sleep on memory foam pillows – 

1. Retains Proper Body Alignment – Retaking contours is one of the vital purposes of the memory pillow. Hereby, the pillow excels at keeping perfect contour alignment from your head, neck, and shoulders to the back. I know it seems surreal. Unlike normal pillows make your head lean towards the upside, the memory pillows will mold to your shape as you lie in them.
2. Ensures Proper Reliefs for Pressure Points – A regular pillow will give you pain in many pressure points if it fails to retain contour. Therefore, memory foam pillows are great relief to the stiff pressure points in the shoulders, head, spine, and neck.
3. High-Quality Material Breathability – All pillows come with air passages for you to breathe through the pillow regarding your sleep posture. However, the older the pillow gets the faster the breathability gets worn out. To allow maximum breathability and airflow in your body for a long period Memory pillows are better.
4. Therapeutic Orthopedics Alternatives to Relieve Neck, Back, and Shoulder Pains – Therapeutic memory foam pillows are mostly used by people with medical conditions like injuries, straining, headaches, neck arthritis, and all. Therefore, this memory foam pillow will provide support and alignment to your whole body no matter how you sleep.

Well, if you are still not convinced here are some additional reasons to sleep on memory pillows –

1. Gets Rid Of Snoring – A vlog from Nature Sleep shows us that the misalignment state of your head caused by the common pillows is responsible for snoring or breathing difficulty. Therefore, a Memory pillow can work like an anti-snore pillow preventing bad snoring during sleep
2. Contouring Against Motion Transfer – Adsorbing the motion from your sleeping self and preventing the motion from transferring is another cool feature of a Memory pillow.
3. Spine Alignment with Other Body Parts – The body parts like shoulders, head, spine, neck, hips, knees, ankles, and neck consist of pressure points deeply related to one another. Proper alignment makes sure there is no stress or discomfort on the pressure points and spine as well.

Can Memory Foam Pillows Cause Neck Pain?

Memory foam pillows are great for reducing neck plan. However, sometimes things go south and feel neck pain.

Well, there are many factors when your memory pillow causes neck pain. Therefore, here are the causes and preventions of memory pillows causing neck pain:

• If your neck is too weak to get used to the little hard memory foam pillows, then you will face neck pain. The remedy is to try using feather pillows, or other memory pillows with softer options.
• The contour memory foam pillow is also a great replacement, that ensures neutral alignment from head to neck.
• Flatter or slim memory pillows can cause neck strain due to your weird sleeping position. Therefore, try sleeping on the cervical memory foam pillows fostering perfect spinal alignment to prevent neck pain.
• If you are a side sleeper, you should try to maintain your spine straight by sleeping on the higher memory pillow.
• In case you sleep on your stomach, you should avoid using too high or hard memory pillows. Instead, you better your slimmer memory pillows to decrease neck-to-head misalignment.
• If you are riding a car, train, plane, or just sitting at your desk, you using horseshoe memory foam pillows to support your pressure points.

Is a Memory Foam Pillow Good For Side Sleepers?

Of course, the memory foam pillows are good for side sleepers. Although the general memory foam pillows may not be the best choice for side sleepers, various options are available for side sleepers from the memory pillows.

For a side sleeper, you should sleep on a pillow that’s moderately hard, thick, high, and stiff. So, you can go for the few quality options from memory pillows.

1. Contour Memory Foam Pillow.
2. Special Condition Memory Foam Neck Pillow.
3. Side sleeping Memory Foam Body Pillow.

From my experience, these three are the most suitable and comfortable memory foam pillows for side sleepers.

Do Foam Pillows Get Dust Mites?

Having dust mites in your pillows may give you sickness, or allergies. For example, you will experience sneezing, itching, runny nose, cough, facial bumps, watery eyes, and many more.

Dust mites allergy will ruin your health as well as your sleep. Thereby, you should know which pillows do or do not get dust mites.

The general pillows are prone to getting dust mites. On the other hand, the memory foam pillows are very repellent to dust mites and bacteria. As memory foam is made of some fences and high-end materials, the dust mites cannot easily get inside the foam pillow. 

Benefits Of Memory Foam Pillows?

You will avail many health and convenience benefits by using memory foam pillows. Each person has different sleeping habits and different circumstances. Keeping all of the situations in mind memory pillows offer us lots of pillow varieties with features and characteristics.

Overall the most effective benefits of memory pillows are – 

• Greatly helps with sleep deprivation.
• Amazing support and alignment for the head, neck, shoulders, and spine.
• Effectively decreases the pressure on joints and muscles.
• Low VOC and hypoallergenic.
• Helps reduce snoring and breathing difficulty.
• Retains the shape of the pillow after every use.
• Pressure, temperature, and density-dependent.
• Fights off dust mites.
• Helps with changing sleeping positions.

As you can see, the advantages of memory pillows are innumerable.

Are Memory Foam Pillows Toxic?

We already know that memory foam pillows are developed with polyurethane with some exclusive chemicals and components enhancing viscosity and density. Therefore, some of the additional chemicals in the foam are slightly toxic and some are not. 

Thorough research has found the possible toxic chemicals inside the memory foam. Nonetheless, even legal actions were imposed on the memory foam manufacturers. However, memory foam companies provided solid evidence and claimed that their products are free of VOCs aka Volatile Organic Compounds. Thus, we can say that memory foam pillows are safe and hypoallergenic.

But we cannot let go of the facts about the chemicals residing inside memory foam products. So, I will tell you about the toxic components in memory foam pillows 

• The polyurethane inside memory foam is highly combustible. As a result, it can be a bit hazardous.
• Memory foam also consists of Isocyanates which are nontoxic. But a certain type of people may face irritation or itching of the eyes, skin, nose, or throat. 
• Memory pillows give off an off-gassing smell which ensures the presence of chemicals. Well, the smell will fade away by taking some measurements.

So far, memory foam pillows are relatively safe and nonlethal to users. However, people with different conditions will experience some incidents. As well, memory pillows come in different variations of pillows for individual people. Thus, the risks are unknown and most probably less effective.

Can Memory Foam Grow Mold?

Memory foam will mostly avoid getting mold if you are careful with the cleaning and maintenance. However, pillows will easily grow mold, in case you do not follow the proper hygiene plan.

How can memory foam grow mold? If you keep your memory pillow in a wet or moist place with no proper sunlight, it will grow moldy sooner or later. 

Although memory pillows are repellent to dust mites, molds, and bacteria, wet or soaked situations will make the resistance weaker. After you wash the memory pillows, you sometimes forget to air dry the pillows. 

Thereby, if you don’t dry the pillows properly, or let your sweat seep into the pillows without a care, it will get moldy.

Sometimes we become lazy and do not dry our hair after showering. Remember, sleeping with wet hair will give you colds, headaches, and pillow molds.

In case your pillows are already moldy follow this to know how to get rid of mold from memory foam. I got the precise solutions–

• Air dry and sundry your memory pillows once in a while.
• Try to avoid sleeping with sweat or wet hair.
• In case, the pillows are already moldy, clean them in the washer or dryer. After that, air dry the pillows by airing them in the sun thoroughly. 

Are Memory Foam Pillows Bad For You?

Not at all, if anything memory foam pillows are better than normal pillows. Therefore, memory pillows provide lots of comfort while ensuring perfect contour and alignment of your whole body.

Hence, it does not matter what kind of sleeper you are, you will always feel at ease using memory pillows. Moreover, weird sleepers will never wake up from back or neck pain after using these pillows. 

Further, many health experts suggest memory pillows get more quality sleep.  Thus, memory pillows offer you both comfort and protection.

However, there are odd situations where a memory sleeping pillow may not be your ideal choice. For example, if you lie on your face to sleep, then you may have a hard time breathing.

On the other hand, some people with weak necks will feel better sleeping on feather pillows. But considering all other facts memory foam pillows are great for you in most cases.

Conclusion

Now, you know all the things you must know about memory foam pillows. We all are mostly used to using general pillows, so a lot of us don’t know much about it. Moreover, we don’t the possible benefits or dangers of memory pillows either. 

That’s why I researched and used all my experiences with pillows to guide you about memory pillows. Further, I hope you know the type of memory pillow you should choose depending on your health issues.

Here are some additional resources that you might find helpful:

• https://www.dailyuw.com/ask_the_experts/how-to-use-a-memory-foam-neck-pillow/article_33beea40-bf49-11ec-bd65-ff8e6d197e76.html
• https://househappy.co.uk/how-to-sleep-on-a-memory-foam-pillow/
• https://househappy.co.uk/how-to-sleep-on-a-memory-foam-pillow/

Suggested Reading…

• Types of Pillows
• Memory Foam Density Chart
• How to Measure a Pillow