Best Mattresses for Insomnia You Can Buy in 2024

If you suffer from insomnia, you may have already tried just about everything – supplements, sleep hygiene, exercise, etc. – with different levels of success. While all these can be good methods to combat insomnia, the one thing you may not have considered as the cause of your sleep issues is your mattress itself.

Saggy, hot, or otherwise uncomfortable mattresses can contribute to insomnia by making you so uncomfortable that you either can’t fall asleep or stay asleep. The good news is there are lots of mattresses on the market that can help alleviate your insomnia instead of contributing to it. Take a look at the list below to find your best mattress for insomnia.

The AS3 by Amerisleep claims the title of “Best Overall Mattress” because it’s so versatile that it offers something for just about everyone. If you want a pure mattress with the feel of classic memory foam and the cooling and responsiveness of latex, consider this offering.

All Amerisleep mattresses come with a 100-night sleep trial and a 20-year warranty.

SEE ALSO: Amerisleep AS3 Hybrid Review

Read Our Full Review of the Amerisleep AS3 Mattress

If you have an active lifestyle, and your insomnia is getting in the way of it, check out the Zoma Hybrid. This mattress was designed by and for athletes to ensure maximum recuperation and performance-enhancing sleep.

Zoma mattresses come with free delivery, a 100-night sleep trial and a 10-year warranty.

SEE ALSO: Zoma Vs. Purple: Side-by-Side Mattress Comparison

If you’re worried that purchasing a new mattress for your insomnia could strain your budget, check out the Vaya Mattress. Vaya keeps its prices affordable by keeping its design simple rather than sacrificing quality with lesser materials.

Vaya mattresses ship free and come with a 100-night sleep trial and a 10-year warranty.

SEE ALSO: Best Mattresses Under $1000

If you find yourself unable to sleep because you’re waking up in a sweat every night, the Nolah Evolution 15 might be the answer to all your problems. This cooling mattress features multiple technologies that work in different ways to shed heat.

Nolah offers a 120-night sleep trial and a lifetime warranty on the Evolution 15. You can remove the sleep trial of Nolah mattresses at checkout, if you want to save more on a new bed.

SEE ALSO: Best Luxury Mattresses

It’s no secret most innerspring mattresses no longer stack up against the competition. But if you just can’t give up on the bouncy and breathable feel of the innerspring mattress, check out the Saatva Classic. This innerspring hybrid uses a couple of twists on the traditional innerspring design to fix the innerspring mattress’s most common problems.

SEE ALSO: Open Coil vs Pocket Spring Mattresses: What’s The Difference?

If you’re looking for a memory foam mattress that can keep you as cool as any hybrid or latex mattress, say hello to the GhostBed Luxe! This might be a memory foam mattress, but it also might just be the coolest mattress you’ve ever slept on.

SEE ALSO: Best Tempur-Pedic Mattress Alternatives

If you’re looking for a mattress that can alleviate your pressure points without overheating, check out the Helix Midnight Luxe. This gel memory foam mattress can hug your body while pulling heat away from it simultaneously.

SEE ALSO: How to Sleep on Your Side on an Adjustable Bed

If you worry your allergies are what’s keeping you up at night, check out the Bear Pro. This mattress features copper infusions that create a hostile environment for common allergens like mold, mildew, and bacteria.

SEE ALSO: Zoma vs. Bear: Side-by-Side Mattress Comparison

If you’re looking for a hybrid mattress that offers a classic hybrid mattress feel, check out the Brooklyn Bedding Aurora Hybrid. This hybrid mattress features layers of comfort foam and a patented coil system that put it firmly among the best mattresses for insomnia.

SEE ALSO: Best Casper Mattress Alternatives

Those who want a mattress that features two firmnesses in one should check out the Layla Hybrid. This mattress features flippable firmness to allow you to experiment with which support level helps most with your insomnia.

SEE ALSO: Best Mattresses for Guest Room

Best Mattresses for Insomnia of 2024 Highlights And Comparison

What to Look for in a Mattress for Insomnia

If you’ve ever suffered insomnia, the idea that a comfortable mattress could help you might sound a little far-fetched. However, it’s possible that your uncomfortable mattress is contributing to or even causing your insomnia. If you can’t get comfortable, you can’t sleep. And it is possible to be poorly supported or be getting inadequate pressure relief without even knowing it.

For instance, if your mattress is overheating you, if it’s throwing your spine out of alignment and causing pain, or if it’s transferring your partner’s motion to you, it could be keeping you awake. This means replacing your mattress could help ease your insomnia issues. Especially if you look at how the rest of your bedroom may be helping or hindering your sleep.

“Temperature plays an important role in sleep,” notes Dr. Santhi. “We are physiologically wired to sleep at night which is the coolest time of the day. Also, your core body temperature is lower during sleep than during wake. Therefore, a cooler temperature works better for sleep. Keeping your room cooler at night will help your sleep.”

SEE ALSO: Best 10 Inch Mattress

What Is Insomnia?

Simply put, insomniaVerified Source National Library of Medicine (NIH)World’s largest medical library, making biomedical data and information more accessible.View source is the inability to sleep. You may not be able to initiate sleep or maintain it for enough time. Poor quality sleep also falls under the umbrella of insomnia, meaning you might have insomnia and not even know it. If you wake up feeling tired and unrefreshed, it could be insomnia that’s preventing you from entering the deep sleep phases.

Insomnia is quite commonVerified Source National Library of Medicine (NIH)World’s largest medical library, making biomedical data and information more accessible.View source and affects just about everyone, but it can affect different people in different ways. If you have trouble sleeping for a short period (under three months), you have acute insomnia. Acute insomnia is often related to stress or changes in your environment that cause you to lose sleep.

Chronic insomnia, meanwhile, is trouble sleeping for at least three nights per week for more than three months. While acute insomnia often has external causes, chronic insomnia can have internal as well as external causes, like hormone changes, poor sleep hygiene, or comorbid conditions that interrupt sleep.

Far from being just a source of daytime drowsiness, insomnia – especially chronic insomnia – can cause a host of other illnesses. Sleep deprivation can lead to everything from cardiovascular disease to diabetes to obesity to depression. There’s also evidence thatVerified Source National Library of Medicine (NIH)World’s largest medical library, making biomedical data and information more accessible.View source chronic sleep deprivation can lead to dementia in older age.

SEE ALSO: Best Mattress for Fibromyalgia

Ideal Mattress Materials for Insomnia

The ideal mattress material for insomnia is the type of mattress that makes you most comfortable during sleep. This can mean different things to different people, so you’ll need to be aware of your personal sleep needs and how each mattress material can meet them before you buy.

Memory Foam

A memory foam mattress can help many different sleepers with insomnia, thanks to its highly contouring nature and its ability to isolate motion. Flexible polyurethane foam – or memory foam – is the most adaptable of all the materials on the market.

Memory foam offers deep compression and superior pressure relief, which can keep side sleepers especially comfortable because they need the most compression under their pressure points. Memory foam is one of the top materials for mattresses for joint pain.

Memory foam is particularly excellent for side sleepers, but it’s also a great choice for combo, back, and stomach sleepers because of its ability to mold itself to your shape no matter what position you adopt during sleep.

There are a couple of caveats to memory foam’s ability to accommodate everyone. Hot sleepers and active sleepers, in particular, might have issues with this type of foam because of its synthetic nature.

As a synthetic foam, memory foam tends to retain body heat. Though gel infusions can counter this problem somewhat, even gel memory foam does not shed heat, as well as other mattress types. You might not notice this if you don’t sleep hot, but hot sleepers should consider alternatives, like latex or hybrid mattresses.

Active sleepers may need to consider an alternative as well, thanks to memory foam’s slow response time. If you tend to stick with the same sleeping position all night, this won’t be an issue for you. If you like to toss and turn during sleep, waiting for body impressions to bounce back could keep you awake. A latex or hybrid mattress may be a better choice for you.

Latex Foam

Natural latex foam can be a wonderful material for people who suffer from insomnia, especially hot and active sleepers who want an all-foam mattress. Latex foam comes from the sap of the rubber tree. This makes it a natural foam that has several advantages over memory foam.

Perhaps the biggest advantage of natural latex is its bounce. Natural latex wants to retain its own shape. This means a latex mattress bounces back into shape much more quickly than memory foam when you move.

It pretty much regains its shape as soon as the pressure of your body weight is removed, and this means you won’t be waiting for body impressions to clear if you like to toss and turn at night.

Natural latex is also much more naturally breathable than even gel memory foam. This means it’s the better of the two foams when it comes to shedding heat and wicking away sweat. So if you tend to heat up like a dutch oven when you sleep, an organic latex mattress or an eco friendly mattress may be a better alternative for you than memory foam.

On the other hand, latex doesn’t come without its issues. The fact that latex wants to retain its shape is great when it comes to buoyancy and responsiveness, but it’s not so great when it comes to pressure relief.

While a latex mattress can relieve pressure quite well, side sleepers especially may notice a difference between latex and memory foam mattresses of the same firmness. The memory foam will compress and contour to relieve the pressure a little better than the latex. If you’re not a side sleeper, you may not notice this.

What you will notice is latex’s price tag. As a natural foam, latex is harder and more expensive to come by than synthetic memory foam. This means it has the highest upfront price of any mattress material. Latex is highly durable, so the fact that it lasts several decades makes up for its high initial cost. But it might break your budget when you first purchase it.

Hybrid

Hybrid mattresses are another fantastic option for people who suffer from insomnia. In fact, these versatile mattresses might just be the best option for the highest number of people because they offer tons of contouring and pressure relief for side sleepers while simultaneously offering hot and active sleepers lots of cooling responsiveness.

Hybrids accomplish all this by combining a pocketed coil support core with at least two inches of comfort foam. This means you get a mattress that can adapt to your shape from top to bottom while maintaining the bounce and breathability of a coil support layer.

The best part is you can get hybrid mattresses with any foam you like. You can get memory foam, latex foam, or some combination of the two. This can allow hot sleepers and active sleepers to experience a memory foam sleep surface without having to deal with some of memory foam’s main problems.

The primary issue with hybrid mattresses doesn’t have anything to do with the way they feel. Hybrids are less durable than foam mattresses because their coils break down and lose tension faster than base foams wear out.

This means hybrid mattresses are not as durable as all-foam mattresses. When you combine this lessened durability with the fact that hybrid mattresses are, on average, almost as expensive as latex ones, you’ve got the most expensive mattress type over time.

Innerspring

If your mattress is interfering with your sleep initiation or quality, it’s a good bet it’s an innerspring. Innerspring mattresses are often the worst choice for anyone with insomnia because of all of the issues inherent to this older sleep technology.

Innerspring mattresses feature open coil support systems. Open coils, unlike pocketed coils, don’t have their own individual encasements. Rather, they are wired together into a network that stretches across the entire mattress. The fact that these coils are all wired together causes a host of problems that can all contribute to insomnia.

Perhaps the most common innerspring issue that causes insomnia is the fact that these mattresses cannot contour very well. Their coils tend to sag under the heavier parts of your body rather than compressing and rising based on where your body curves inward and outward. This allows your spine to fall out of alignment and can lead to pain that interrupts sleep.

Another major issue inherent to innerspring mattresses is their motion transfer. The fact that open coils are wired together means they amplify motion and transfer it all over the bed. If this doesn’t contribute to your own insomnia, it might just contribute to your partner’s.

What’s even worse is that most open coil systems start to make noise every time you move because of the metal-to-metal contact happening inside the bed. For all these reasons, we suggest hybrid mattresses for those who want coil support systems.

Ideal Mattress Firmness for Insomnia

There isn’t technically an ideal mattress firmness for insomnia like there’s an ideal firmness for mattresses for back pain or an ideal mattress firmness for side sleepers. Rather, the ideal mattress firmness is the mattress firmness that keeps you most comfortable.

That means the firmness that will work best for your sleep position and body type is the firmness that will best fight insomnia.

Mattress firmness is measured on a scale of one to 10, with 10 being the firmest. Typically, you won’t find mattresses softer than a three or firmer than an eight. This is because the extreme ends of the scale wouldn’t have enough support or compression to be comfortable.

Sleep Position

Your sleep position is the main determinant of your mattress firmness needs. The way you sleep determines how your body contacts the mattress, where your pressure points are, and therefore how much support and cradling you need. Think of your sleep position as being your firmness baseline. Other factors may take it up or down from there.

Back Sleepers

Back sleepers need a balance of support and cradling that slightly favors support. This allows a mattress for back sleeping to keep your body lifted on top of the sleep surface while at the same time compressing under the buttocks to provide optimum lumbar support.

If you don’t get this compression, it could allow your spine to slouch and lead to pain in your lower back. But if your mattress is too soft, it could allow your body to sink, bending your spine out of alignment. For this reason, back sleepers need medium-firm mattresses (6).

Combo Sleepers

Combo sleepers don’t have a strong preference for one sleep position. Rather, they may choose any position on any night, or even change things up multiple times during the same night. For this reason, a mattress for combination sleepers must be is versatile enough to accommodate all sleep positions at least some of the time. Medium mattresses (5) fit this bill the best because they offer an even balance of pressure relief and support.

Side Sleepers

Side sleepers tend to have problems with pressure. When you sleep on your side, your body weight pushes your hip and shoulder joints into the mattress (See our article about sleeping after shoulder surgery here). If the mattress pushes back, it exerts pressure on these joints and can cause pain.

This means side sleepers generally need a softer mattresses (3) to medium mattresses to counter this pressure. Softer mattresses for side sleeping absorb pressure rather than exerting it, keeping your pressure points free from pain.

The issue of bouncy springs can also complicate the search for a side sleeper’s mattress. Hybrid mattresses for side sleeping can provide the needed balance of cushion and support, while classic innerspring mattresses lack enough cushion.

Stomach Sleepers

Stomach sleepers have the opposite problem as side sleepers when it comes to the right mattresses. Sleeping on your stomach allows your pelvis to sink into the mattress, which means an overly softer mattress can cause lower back pain because the pelvic sinkage overarches the spine. This means stomach sleepers generally need firm mattresses (7) to counteract this problem.

Mattresses for stomach sleeping with firm surfaces can help keep your pelvis lifted and your spine aligned when you’re on your stomach. Some stomach sleepers also keep a pillow under their abdomen as a further precaution.

Body Type

Your body type doesn’t have as much of an impact on your firmness needs as your sleep position, but it may require you to go up or down a firmness level from the one that corresponds to your sleep style. It all depends on whether you fall into what the mattress industry considers the average human weight range.

Overall, the bedding industry considers the average human weight range to be between 130 and 230 pounds. This means they make beds operating under the assumption that most of the people who sleep on them will need a balance of support and pressure relief calibrated to accommodate someone somewhere in the middle of those two numbers.

If you happen to fall in between these two numbers, you don’t have to make any changes to your firmness level. Just buy the mattress that best fits your sleep position. If you fall outside of this weight range, however, you could need to go up or down from your baseline firmness.

Petite Sleepers

Petite sleepers are those who weigh in at less than 130 pounds. If this describes you, you may need to go down a firmness level from your baseline firmness in order to get enough compression in a mattress for lightweight sleepers for sufficient pressure relief. The firmness level that corresponds to your sleep position may be overly firm for you.

Plus-Size Sleepers

On the flip side, those who fall on the other end of the weight range at over 230 pounds tend to have the opposite problem. The mattress that goes with their sleep position may be too soft to offer them adequate support. This means if you’re a heavier sleeper, you should go up a firmness level from the one that corresponds to your sleep position, perhaps even consider an extra firm mattress.

Firmer feels ensures a mattress for heavy people offers enough lift to keep your spine aligned. Without one, a plus-sized sleeper is more likely to wake up early and with back pain.

Mattress Sizes

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FAQs

Can a mattress really help my insomnia?

A mattress can help insomnia by creating a better sleep environment for you. While a bad mattress might not be the primary cause of your insomnia, if your mattress doesn’t provide you with ideal comfort and support, it can contribute to your sleep troubles. A too-firm or too-soft mattress makes it difficult to relax, after all.

This is especially true of hot sleepers and sleepers with pain issues. If your mattress retains heat or contributes to your pain by exerting too much pressure or allowing your spine to fall out of alignment, this can keep you from falling asleep or sleeping well. In this case, replacing your mattress with a more comfortable one might be the solution to your sleep woes.

What is the best mattress firmness for insomnia?

The best mattress firmness for insomnia is the firmness that’s best for you. It is true that the incorrect mattress firmness can contribute to insomnia related to discomfort. However, there is no “ideal firmness” for insomnia. Instead, you’ll need to find the ideal firmness for your sleep position.

Usually, side sleepers need softer mattresses. Combo sleepers need medium mattresses. Back sleepers need a medium-firm mattress. And stomach sleepers need firm mattresses. Your body type may also contribute to your firmness needs if you’re on the heavier or lighter side.

Getting the right firmness for your sleep style can help you get the right balance of support and pressure relief. This can, in turn, help reduce your insomnia symptoms.

Does motion transfer cause insomnia?

Motion transfer may contribute to or even cause insomnia for anyone sleeping with a partner. The most common scenario is interrupted or poor-quality sleep.

When you’re sleeping with a partner, their motion can be transferred to you through the sleep surface. The sudden motion underneath you may pull you out of a deep sleep cycle – or it may wake you up outright. Months or years of this can and does lead to chronic sleep deprivation.

This is why you’ll need a mattress that can prevent motion transfer if you sleep with a partner. Don’t worry – you don’t need some specialty mattress. Memory foam beds, mattresses of natural latex, and hybrids are all fantastic mattresses for motion isolation.

Will a cooling mattress help with my insomnia?

A cooling mattress can absolutely help with insomnia – especially for those who sleep hot. Even if you’re not a hot sleeper, your core temperature still needs to fall below its normal level for you to initiate and maintain sleep.

If your mattress retains heat, it can keep your skin from reaching the ideal sleep temperature of 88 degrees Fahrenheit. A too-warm sleep surface can make it more difficult to relax. Cooling sheets and other bedding can help, but the right mattress is still essential.

For this reason, we recommend gel memory foam, natural latex or hybrid mattresses to anyone who sleeps hot and suffers from insomnia as a result.

Can an adjustable base help with my insomnia?

An adjustable bed base can help insomnia, especially if it’s caused by a comorbid condition. For example, if sleep apnea is the primary cause of your insomnia, then using an adjustable bed to sleep with your head elevated can alleviate your insomnia by reducing your sleep apnea symptoms.

This is also true of people whose insomnia is caused by chronic pain. If you have chronic back or joint pain, an adjustable base can help alleviate pressure on the joints and the spine all at the same time. When paired with a mattress for pressure points, it can lead to an easier time falling asleep and maintaining good quality sleep.

Bottom Line

Finding the perfect mattress may not fix all of your sleep problems. But having one of the best mattresses that offers the right balance of support, pressure relief, and temperature control can create the ideal sleep environment. This can help alleviate at least some of your insomnia symptoms and offer you better rest.

Dr. Burns tests each mattress at eachnight’s facility to make sure the recommendations are based on real, expert reviews.