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Neck pain while sleeping is a pretty common problem, and for a while, it was a really big one for me. I would regularly wake up with neck pain that would actually cause pretty severe headaches. It was impacting my sleep so much that I began to dread going to bed.
Your pillow not working for you can really help alleviate neck pain, exacerbate neck pain or be the root cause. I tried several different pillows, including some high-tech, expensive ones but the one that finally helped is a simple and affordable pillow that I never sleep without.
Pillows I tried before
Purple Harmony Pillow
Before finding my perfect pillow, there were a few others that I tried. The first one I tried was the Purple Harmony Pillow. I think this pillow is super comfortable, and it uses natural latex foam as its core and it is surrounded by a very thin layer of GelFlex Grid that is found in Purple's mattresses. This is a responsive, tall and cool sleeping pillow, and as someone who loves Purple mattresses, I really wanted to love the Purple Harmony Pillow, too.
It now comes in three different height profiles, which wasn't true when we first tested this pillow. The height option is a really nice feature and if I had the right one for my needs it my neck probably wouldn't be an issue and I think it's really comfortable even though it isn't great for me.
Nolah Airfoam Pillow
Another pillow I tried is the Nolah Airfoam Pillow which is unfortunately discontinued. Nolah uses its proprietary Airfoam material in all of its beds and this stuff is a blend between a traditional memory foam and a springy-er latex foam on top of being very breathable which is nice to have in a pillow (no need to flip it to the cool side.)
This was actually my primary pillow for a very long time, and I found it super comfortable before the neck pain set in. I am not entirely sure as to why it suddenly developed neck pain sleeping on this pillow for so long but bodies do change. My partner ended up switching to this pillow after I gave it up, and they love it now.
Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like there's any new equivalent pillow to the Nolah Airfoam Pillow, but they do make a latex pillow and a shredded foam pillow now.
The Pillow Cube
The last pillow I tried to help my neck pain was a Pillow Cube, which is specifically designed to help side sleepers with neck pain. Instead of an oval-shaped design like the vast majority of pillows out there, it is in the shape of a cube (great name, huh?)
This design is meant to fully support your head and prevent neck pain, and for a while, the Pillow Cube worked great for me. I can't pinpoint the exact reason the Pillow Cube stopped working for me, but my neck pain started coming back after about a month of using it.
Of all the pillows I tried before landing on the one that worked, the Pillow Cube was my favorite and I think for others who have neck pain like me it has a good chance of working.
The pillow that fixed my neck pain
Brooklyn Bedding Premium Shredded Foam Pillow
The pillow that finally brought me consistent relief from my neck pain and headaches was one that surprised me, the Premium Shredded Foam Pillow from Brooklyn Bedding.
The Purple and Nolah pillows I tried are quite expensive ($200 for the Purple Harmony) and "high-tech" with lots of cool features and the Premium Shredded Foam pillow is pretty basic, especially the older model that I sleep on.
The newer one has a cooling cover on it, which I think is awesome and especially because the price remains the same. After a discount, this pillow is only about $40 which might be more expensive than something you would find at a Walmart or Target, but compared to most big brand pillows that you can buy online it is a steal.
The pillow itself is filled with a combination of different kinds of foams that are manufactured in the 3Z mattress factory and are shredded into small pieces instead of being a large slab of a single material like the other pillows I tried.
Because it uses a variety of foams, the pillow has a neutral type of feel with a hint of memory foam that I think pretty much everyone will find comfortable.
It also deals with the issue of inappropriate loft easily because you can unzip the pillow and remove some of the foam to make it thinner. Brooklyn Bedding actually ships this pillow with some additional filling as well if you want to increase the loft.
When I first started sleeping on it, I needed to remove just a bit of the shredded foam to decrease the loft, but once I did that, my neck pain went away almost entirely.
I think the fact that his pillow is customizable, comfortable and also affordable makes it a great choice for anyone who has neck pain, or is just looking to upgrade an old pillow for not a lot of money.
Neck pain and pillow loft
Having neck pain while sleeping or waking up with a stiff, sore neck is a pretty common problem and can be caused by a variety of things. If this is a persistent problem that doesn't get better, I recommend seeking medical advice because it could be caused by more serious health issues like a pinched nerve, arthritis or teeth grinding that require more than a new pillow.
For me, the problem was inconsistent enough that I was confident it wasn't a symptom of a larger medical problem. Three or four nights per week, I would wake up in the middle of the night with a headache and my neck and upper trapezius muscles feeling very stiff and sore. This obviously negatively impacted my sleep on the nights it happened, but it would fortunately go away once I got up and started moving around.
There was a brief three-week window when it started happening nightly, and it got so bad that I preemptively took ibuprofen before bed and started dreading going to sleep. It eventually got better after I tried several different pillows.
One of the most common culprits of neck pain associated with sleeping is spinal misalignment caused by a pillow with an inappropriate loft.
Loft is how tall your pillow is, and it can be measured with weight or without weight. Your pillow's weighted loft is more important for neck pain, and different materials will compress more or less than others.
If your pillow loft is too high it can place your head too high in comparison to the rest of your spine and the opposite is true for a low pillow loft.
The amount of loft you need varies by sleeping position. In general, if you are a stomach sleeper you will need a thinner pillow with a lower loft, or if you are a back sleeper you will need a middle loft and a side sleeper, like me, will need a thicker pillow with a higher loft.
Neck stretching
I did start to incorporate about five minutes of neck stretching every night before bed and it did help improve my neck pain symptoms a lot, but it wasn't until I tried the Brooklyn Bedding Premium Shredded Foam Pillow that my neck pain went away almost entirely.
