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We’ve updated this guide to reflect the redesigned Nest Easy Breather Pillow, which is now washable.

Nothing highlights the importance of a good pillow like trying to sleep on a bad one, and people who sleep on their side, in particular, can have a tough time finding the right fit because they need more neck and head support. After more than 1,000 nights testing 119 pillows, we’ve found a number of options for side sleepers and think the Nest Bedding Easy Breather Pillow is the best for a range of side-sleepers.

This pillow has a customizable and washable filling that offers firm support for back- and side-sleepers. What it doesn’t have: the lingering chemical smell we’ve noticed in some other shredded foam.

*At the time of publishing, the price was $100.

We recommend the Nest Bedding Easy Breather Pillow for both side- and back-sleepers in our full guide to bed pillows, and we know some stomach-sleepers—those who sleep half on their side, half on their stomach—also find it comfortable, and it offers neck support that doesn’t cause pain.

Many companies advertise their pillows for specific sleep positions, but in our experience their recommendations don’t match up all that well. Overwhelmingly, our side-sleeping testers have preferred pillows with shredded memory foam (even when they didn’t like the idea of sleeping on foam at first) because of its moldability.

For those side-sleepers on a budget, we’ve recommended the Xtreme Comforts Shredded Memory Foam Pillow since 2016. While we’ve encountered issues with a lingering chemical smell in approximately half the pillows we tested, the 30-day return policy and affordable price point makes it worth considering. Meanwhile, Sleep Number's ComfortFit Pillow Ultimate is a more luxurious option that is easily tailored to different body shapes and preferences. Using a mixture of shredded foam and down alternative, this is the loftiest shredded-foam pillows we’ve tested, and three sealed, removable layers inside make it easier to customize than any other we tried.

To stay comfortably aligned, most side-sleepers should look for a pillow that has 4 to 6 inches of loft, or height, and provides the right combination of softness (to cradle the neck) and firmness (to hold it in place). People who sleep on their side need more support than those who favor any other sleep position because, on their side, they have a larger gap between their head and the mattress. As a result, if you have broad shoulders, you need a loftier pillow. The goal of any pillow should be to keep your head and neck in roughly the same position as they are when you’re standing straight.

The goal of any pillow should be to keep your head and neck in roughly the same position as they are when you’re standing straight.

Terry Cralle, a registered nurse and clinical sleep educator, told us that keeping your body correctly positioned at night is crucial to your physical health and the quality of your sleep. “Your sleeping posture is just as important as your waking posture,” she said. “Your head will be angled downward if the pillow is too thin and angled upward if too thick. Aim for neutral, to keep the head, neck, and spine in alignment.” And your neck isn’t the only part of your body that needs support. Cralle also told us, “If you are a side sleeper, a thinner pillow placed between your knees can help make you more comfortable and help keep your spine in a neutral position.” We also recommend using a body pillow to get full-length support while you’re on your side.

We spoke to a number of experts while researching our guide to bed pillows, and they all emphasized the same thing: A pillow is an extremely personal choice. Bodies are different, it’s as simple as that. Some side-sleepers feel perfectly comfortable with one pillow, while others may need two. Several of our staffers like to use a shredded-memory-foam pillow, such as the Xtreme Comforts or Easy Breather, as a base layer with a thinner down pillow on top. Figuring out what works for you will likely involve some trial and error. That’s why we think it’s important to buy a pillow with a good return policy—of at least 30 days—so you can try it at home before committing.

It’s important to buy a pillow with a good return policy—of at least 30 days—so you can try it at home before committing.

We’ve published multiple updates to our full pillow guide over the years, and for our 2018 update we did preliminary testing with 30 promising pillows. Then we narrowed the field and asked a panel of people (including three side-sleepers) to spend a month testing roughly eight to 10 pillows that suited their sleep position. Each person slept on each pillow for at least three nights (unless they found it too uncomfortable—we didn’t ask them to sacrifice sleep) and gave us their feedback.

In 2021 we retested the Nest Bedding Easy Breather Pillow because it got redesigned with a softer, cooler cover and the shredded foam inside now comes encased in a separate inner pouch (instead of being loose inside the pillow cover). This smart upgrade makes the Easy Breather fully washable—a big win for keeping your foam pillow clean (which is usually the downside of foam). The inner pouch is still zippered, letting you adjust the filling and loft to your preference, like the previous version.

We were looking for a pillow that was supportive and comfortable, well-constructed, and affordable. But it was equally important for us to find a pick that came with a good warranty and a generous return policy. A pillow may not be the most exciting purchase you’ll ever make, but the right one will be worth the search.

This pillow has a customizable and washable filling that offers firm support for back- and side-sleepers. What it doesn’t have: the lingering chemical smell we’ve noticed in some other shredded foam.

*At the time of publishing, the price was $100.

The Nest Bedding Easy Breather Pillow offers side-sleepers stellar support and two types of customization—moldable texture and adjustable fill—plus, it’s smooth and comfortable. The Easy Breather’s thicker, Tencel-blend cover does a better job of camouflaging shredded memory foam’s inherent lumpiness. But it’s also expensive.

The Easy Breather looks very tall and lofty when it arrives, which can seem overwhelming, but the fill is adjustable. You can remove clumps of the shredded foam until you get the loft just right (and maybe save those pieces in a bag for future adjustments), which we think makes it a flexible, work-with-your-body choice for many people. One back-sleeper told us, “I realized after all these pillows that I like a really understuffed pillow, and this one, after I took a third of the stuffing out, was perfect. My ideal pillow.” In 2021, The Easy Breather was redesigned to be fully machine-washable. They achieved this by encasing the shredded foam in a zippered inner pouch (so you can still remove stuffing) but it now gives you the option to toss the cover and the stuffing in the washer—which is rare for foam pillows. The new inner pouch is basically a very thin cotton pillowcase, but it makes it much easier to remove the outer cover to wash it than past versions of the Easy Breather (which got very messy). You can also throw the sealed insert into your washing machine on cold, gentle washes with a low-heat dryer cycle to clean the foam (the company suggests using a safety pin on the zipper opening to make sure the inner pouch stays closed). We put our tester in the laundry and had no problems with escaped foam or damage to the pouch, but the foam did expand considerably and took some wrangling to stuff back into the cover. You may need to remove additional foam after a wash to get it back to the right loft for you.

The Easy Breather’s thick Tencel-blend cover is very soft, with a stippled surface that masks the slightly lumpy texture of the shredded-foam fill (testers have noted they can feel the clumps on other foam pillows we’ve tried). It’s not uncommon for memory foam to smell when it’s brand-new, but in our tests The Easy Breather smelled much, much better than other pillows we tested that can have a chemical odor. We’ve had no complaints of stinky pillows from our Easy Breather sleep testers in the past, although in 2019 we did receive one Easy Breather that had a faint unpleasant odor; it faded after a few days.

The Easy Breather comes with a 30-day return policy, which should be long enough for you to make sure it’s the right pillow, and a two-year warranty covering manufacturer defects. That isn’t the longest warranty or the best return policy on our list—Sleep Number and Garnet Hill have more generous options—but it’s better coverage than we’ve seen on many other competitors in our years of testing pillows.

Our favorite pillow for side- and back-sleepers is the supportive Nest Easy Breather . Stomach-sleepers should try the Sleep Number PlushComfort Ultimate .

After 17 hours of research, we think Protect-A-Bed’s AllerZip Smooth Mattress Encasement and Pillow Protectors are the best to ward off bedbugs and dust mites.

After years of researching bedsheets—from cotton to flannel and everything in between—we’ve found the best sets no matter what your preference.

We’ve slept on and group-tested dozens of mattresses, reported on their components, interviewed experts, and determined the best for every budget.

After researching dozens of body pillows and testing eight, we think The Company Store Down-Free and the Snuggle-Pedic Memory Foam support most sleepers best.

This adjustable pillow is more affordable than other shredded-foam pillows we’ve tried, and it offers firm support for back-, side-, and some stomach-sleepers. However, it might have a strong chemical smell.

*At the time of publishing, the price was $50.

In four years of testing, the Xtreme Comforts Shredded Memory Foam Pillow (standard) has consistently outperformed many pricier pillows, but in recent testing two of the four Xtreme Comforts pillows we tried had a strong chemical odor that made them unusable (they are returnable). If you get one that doesn’t smell, it’s a great pillow that typically costs about half the price of our favorite shredded-foam pillow from Nest Bedding. It offers comfortable neck support without being too stiff, a problem with many loftier pillows. The breathable, micro-perforated cover, a bamboo viscose and polyester blend, keeps hot sleepers cooler, and the removable shredded-foam fill makes the pillow easy to adjust for your body. Although it’s lumpier than the Easy Breather, and the texture took getting used to for some of our testers, most of our back- and side-sleepers, as well as a few stomach-sleepers, have liked it over the years. “This pillow gives much better support for my neck than any down/synthetic down pillow I have owned in the past,” one side-sleeper told us.

According to our experts, side-sleepers need the most support, and the Xtreme Comforts offers plenty of it. The pillow is lofty enough (about 6 inches high) to keep your head and body aligned and comfortable while you’re lying sideways, but its shredded fill avoids the stiffness that comes with most single-piece memory-foam models. Jacqui Cheng, Wirecutter’s former editor-in-chief, told us she loved the soft support: “For me, the Xtreme Comforts beat out pretty much all feather pillows because I need the volume in order to support my head and neck. I used to use some solid latex pillows, which were okay too, but they can be too solid, too high.”

Although it may seem counterintuitive, many people find the squishy, moldable fill even more supportive than solid pillows. Picture your head being cradled in a custom fit, rather than propped up by a one-size-fits-all molded pillow (you’ve likely seen versions molded with a cylindrical lump meant to wedge under the neck). Another side-sleeper, Wirecutter travel and outdoor editor Ria Misra, told us her Xtreme Comforts felt “significantly more supportive than the solid memory foam I was using before.”

The Xtreme Comforts also ranked much higher with side-sleepers than pillows containing other types of fill. Wirecutter staff writer Alex Arpaia said she was more comfortable after switching: “I’ve been sleeping with Xtreme Comforts for a few years. It needs fluffing from time to time, but so far has been helpful for keeping my head and neck supported. I was a feather-pillow user before, and sometimes think about going back, but whenever I do, it doesn’t have as much support as the Xtreme Comforts.”

This pillow is customizable in two ways: You can adjust the support by kneading the shredded foam until it molds to your head and neck—it holds its shape better than others we tried—and you can also tailor the amount of fill inside the pillow itself, a feature we’ve seen with few other models. Just unzip the pillow’s inner cover to remove some fill and make it less lofty. For Wirecutter staff writer Daniel Varghese, this feature was the key to getting the perfect amount of loft: “It was easy for me to continue to remove foam periodically until my pillow was as soft, but still supportive, as I wanted it to be.”

That adjustable fill allows the Xtreme Comforts to provide optimal support to a wide range of body sizes and shapes. It’s also good for people who tend to switch positions during the night. The lumpy fill does give this pillow a somewhat irregular texture, even through its cover and a pillowcase, but we found that most testers adjusted to the consistency pretty quickly and, in the end, slept better than ever.

The Xtreme Comforts’ best surprise is its low price, half as much as that of the other shredded-memory-foam pillow we liked, our pick, the Nest Bedding Easy Breather. And despite the Xtreme Comfort’s popularity with our testers, it won’t work for every body, so a 30-day return policy gives you the flexibility to try it without risk.

Removable layers make this shredded-foam pillow easier than others we’ve tested to tailor to different body shapes while offering plenty of neck support for back- and side-sleepers.

*At the time of publishing, the price was $130.

If you sleep on your back or side and want an adjustable shredded-memory-foam pillow but don’t like pulling out messy handfuls to tailor the amount of fill, the Sleep Number ComfortFit Pillow Ultimate is a tidy package that’s worth the upgrade price. We tested six shredded-foam pillows in 2019 (five memory foam and one latex), and three of those were adjustable. The ComfortFit Ultimate is a mix of supportive shredded foam and soft down alternative, and it was the easiest and fastest foam pillow to customize. The cover zips on three sides, so it opens like a suitcase and makes removing the three sealed layers of fill a cinch. Most of our testers were able to find a comfortable fit. One back-sleeping tester noted, “I took out one of the three inserts and it’s perfect! I love this way to adjust shredded foam.”

All of our testers liked the smooth, soft cover (made of lyocell, like the Easy Breather), which masked any lumps in the shredded foam, and the pillow didn’t cause overheating in the night. The layers of fill are wrapped in a jersey knit, so the whole pillow is soft and noiseless (unlike the PlushComfort). Ours was also odorless, unlike the often-smelly Xtreme Comforts we tested and even one of our Easy Breather pillows, which needed to air out for a day or two. One of our sleep testers, a combo side- and stomach-sleeper, complained of shoulder pain from his old down alternative pillows, but he’s been long-term testing the ComfortFit Ultimate since fall 2019 and reports no pain whatsoever. With all three layers inside, this was the tallest foam pillow we tried, so if you need extra loft, it might work well.

There are some drawbacks to Sleep Number, though. The company has a 30-day exchange policy but doesn’t allow returns and trying it in a Sleep Number store, which we’d ordinarily recommend, is difficult during the pandemic. This is an excellent pillow, but if you’re worried about a return policy, try the Nest Easy Breather instead. Sleep Number also offers only a one-year limited warranty, down from the five-year warranty it provided when we first tested this pillow.

Our favorite pillow for side- and back-sleepers is the supportive Nest Easy Breather . Stomach-sleepers should try the Sleep Number PlushComfort Ultimate .

After 17 hours of research, we think Protect-A-Bed’s AllerZip Smooth Mattress Encasement and Pillow Protectors are the best to ward off bedbugs and dust mites.

After years of researching bedsheets—from cotton to flannel and everything in between—we’ve found the best sets no matter what your preference.

We’ve slept on and group-tested dozens of mattresses, reported on their components, interviewed experts, and determined the best for every budget.

After researching dozens of body pillows and testing eight, we think The Company Store Down-Free and the Snuggle-Pedic Memory Foam support most sleepers best.

Terry Cralle, registered nurse and clinical sleep educator, email interview, August 7, 2018

Jackie Reeve is a senior staff writer covering bedding, organization, and home goods at Wirecutter since 2015. Previously she was a school librarian, and she’s been a quilter for about 15 years. Her quilt patterns and her other written work have appeared in various publications. She moderates Wirecutter’s staff book club and makes her bed every morning.

Jennifer Hunter is a senior editor covering apparel, accessories, and pets, and she was previously editor of Wirecutter’s home-goods coverage. She spent a decade writing and editing for lifestyle brands such as Architectural Digest and Apartment Therapy, which has come in handy for her latest project: restoring her untouched mid-century Los Angeles home.

by Autumn Whitefield-Madrano and Jackie Reeve

Our favorite pillow for side- and back-sleepers is the supportive Nest Easy Breather . Stomach-sleepers should try the Sleep Number PlushComfort Ultimate .

We had our testers try 18 shredded, solid-slab, layered, and contoured memory-foam pillows. Their overall favorite: the Nest Bedding Easy Breather Pillow .

If you regularly sleep on your side, you’ll likely want a cushy mattress that aligns your spine and offers good support. These are our favorites.

After researching dozens of body pillows and testing eight, we think The Company Store Down-Free and the Snuggle-Pedic Memory Foam support most sleepers best.

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