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Memory Foam Pillow Benefits

Memory foam was originally designed by NASA and then re-engineered by mattress manufacturers to provide an alternative to traditional foam mattresses and pillows. Although more expensive than other options, memory foam is known for its ability to conform and hold to shapes on a cell-by-cell basis.

  1. Memory Foam

    • Like other types of foam, memory foam is made of vast numbers of polyurethane cells filled with air. In traditional mattresses and foam pillows, these cells hold air inside and remember their shapes even though they are flexible, so they spring back to their original shapes when not in use. Memory foam, however, is visco-elastic and has two important qualities that make it different: holes in its cells and temperature sensitivity. This means that when a person rests on a memory foam pillow, the foam cells will collapse where pressure is increased, pushing their air down into other cells and essentially creating a depression along the line of the person's head. Memory foam also reacts to heat, which can make the cells more flexible when they encounter the high body temperature of the user.

    Different Types of Pillows

    • There are generally two types of memory pillows. The first is the neck pillow, which is in a roll or wave shape intended to help provide support for the user's neck and spine when he is resting. While these pillows are intended to encourage healthy sleeping habits, they must be used the right way, and lying on them incorrectly will not be effective. The other type of memory foam pillow is traditionally shaped, substituting memory foam for the down of original pillows.

    Pressure Points

    • The most common use of memory foam, whether in pillows or in mattresses, is to relieve pain associated with sleeping in uncomfortable or incorrect positions. If the body is badly positioned during sleep, weight can be concentrated on specific areas along the shoulders and spine, creating pressure points that can hurt sleepers and cause problems throughout the day. Memory foam helps solve these problems by distributing the weight of the body more evenly along the pillow or mattress.

    Sleep Apnea

    • Memory foam is also recommended in the treatment of sleep apnea, although its effectiveness is undetermined. Common belief holds that memory foam allows the neck and throat to assume a more natural, comfortable position when sleeping, increasing air flow while allowing the tongue to rest properly in the mouth. This is thought to relieve some symptoms of sleep apnea in addition to reducing snoring.

    Hygiene

    • Memory foam is thought to be more hygienic than other alternatives because of its resistance to bed bugs and similar organisms that can live in beds. For this effect to take place, a memory foam mattress is usually required, since the majority of bed bugs live in the mattress, not the pillow. However, bed bugs and other troublesome organisms can live throughout the bed and the bedroom, so memory foam will not necessarily prevent their incursion.

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