Here at Gardner’s Mattress and More we have one of the largest and most diverse selection of quality pillows you’ve ever seen. Why do we carry over 20 different pillows? Well everyone’s sleeping needs are different. There are many factors that influence what pillow you should use including: Sleeping position, shoulder width, and type of mattress.
Sleeping Position.
As a general rule side-sleepers tend to like a thicker, or higher-loft pillow than a back sleeper. Stomach sleepers tend to like the thinnest pillows of all and like ones that are ‘scrunch-able’. The main idea is to keep your neck aligned with your spine so that you don’t have your neck bent at an odd angle. Gardner’s offers pillows to fit all these sleeping positions.
Shoulder Width.
If Michael Phelps and Ali McBeal were both side sleepers the same pillow wouldn’t work. The Olympian has much broader shoulders than the TV character, thus would need a higher loft pillow to keep their head-neck-spine in alignment. Because of the wide range in people’s body shape we need to carry a variety of thicknesses and density pillows.
Mattress Type.
If you sleep on a firm, traditional type innerspring mattress you tend to sleep ‘on the bed’, but when you have a softer mattress like a pillow-top or memory-foam mattress you tend to sleep deeper ‘in the bed’. This variation affects the proper loft needed for a comfortable pillow choice. When you come into Gardner’s looking for a pillow we’ll try to find a bed in our showroom that has a similar feel to yours so you can test it as if you were in your own bed.
Lastly.
All of the above pseudo-science is great, but at the end of the day the pillow choice is made because it “feels right”. Because of that we encourage you to come in, spend time trying many different pillows until you find ‘yours’. We have memory foam, fiber fill, latex, down and combination pillows, all with 5-year warranties. Stop out and find the one that is right for you.