What Is the Best Mattress for Stomach Sleepers?
Stomach Sleepers are a small group. The body’s weight tends to center around the stomach, so stomach sleeping often causes pain in the back or the neck for many people who sleep on mattresses that are too soft. Sleeping on your stomach can also lead to pain in your shoulders and a lot of tossing and turning. On the positive side, stomach sleepers snore less and get fewer facial wrinkles.
Although rare, some people really do seem to sleep best on their stomachs. True stomach sleepers need the firmest support they can get to prevent their center from sinking into a too-soft mattress and causing back pain. Look for a mattress with a medium-firm surface, at least a 6 on a scale of 1 to 10.
Finding the Best Mattress for Stomach Sleepers
- Pressure Relief Stomach sleepers need to relieve pressure from their necks, shoulders, and back, which makes an innerspring or hybrid mattress an especially good choice. The Saatva mattress is especially good for superior pressure relief combined with customizable support. Pocket coils provide just the right amount of flexibility while isolating movement from tossing and turning. Most importantly for stomach sleepers, the Saatva is available in a firm option, which is about a 7.5 on a scale of 1 to 10. The Saatva also provides layers of polyfoam, memory foam, and 2 inches of organic cotton. Including a 120-day trial period and a 15-year warranty, the Saatva offers stomach sleepers years of cloud-like comfort.
- Spinal Alignment Stomach sleepers experience the best support on a mattress that keeps the spine in healthy alignment while they sleep. Memory foam beds are not ideal for stomach sleepers, because they tend to be on the softer side and can cause an awkward curve in the spine. That said, if you’re a stomach sleeper who prefers memory foam, you can find memory foam beds that come in firmer options (see Loom & Leaf). Otherwise, you’d probably fair best with an innerspring, hybrid or latex mattress with the kind of firm support you need to keep that spine aligned while you sleep on your stomach. The Saatva and DreamCloud are both great options for stomach sleepers in the innerspring/hybrid market, while Zenhaven’s firm side is unmatched in terms of quality and luxury in the latex category.
How to Maximize Support for Stomach Sleeping
To sleep comfortably on your stomach, find the right mattress firmness for your weight and look for enough pressure relief to prevent tossing and turning. In general, the firmer the mattress, the better for stomach sleepers. For average people between 130 and 230 pounds, a firmness of 6.5 on a 1-through-10 scale provides sufficient support. Lightweight stomach sleepers can still get adequate spinal support from a softer mattress (even a memory foam). Heavy stomach sleepers (over 230 pounds) get the best spinal support from a very firm mattress with a 6.5+ level of firmness.
If money is an obstacle, a good budget choice is the medium-firm Nectar foam mattress. It comes with a surprising 365-day trial period, and a lifetime warranty. A layer of gel foam also makes the budget Nectar mattress good for keeping cool at night.
Another great choice is the new Purple mattress combines pocketed-coil support with a unique gel foam grid to create a cool and supportive night on your stomach. And it comes in a medium-firm option–about a 6.5 on the firmness scale. A 100-day trial period and a 10-year warranty make the luxurious Purple a good choice for sleepers who want top-of-the-line with cutting edge technology.
No matter what your specific needs may be, if you sleep on your stomach you have plenty of strong options for a restful night’s sleep on a mattress that will perform for you year after comfy year.