Best Buckwheat Pillow Reviews: Unique, Natural Comfort Choices

Your sleep comfort is unique to you. Your body shape, weight, and personal preferences all help define what posture and support you need for the best possible night’s sleep. Your mattress and pillow choices work together to help provide spinal alignment and whole body rest so you can wake up feeling refreshed and ready to tackle your oncoming day.

It can become somewhat difficult to choose exactly which pillows will work best for you, and a common complaint amongst pillow shoppers is the number of products/brands they research, but still struggle to make a decision upon. Enter the Buckwheat pillow, an entirely different, although ancient, way to view the support your head and neck needs on both side and back sleep positions. Our best buckwheat pillow reviews, (including a few we’ve personally tried out ourselves) can be found below.

Best Buckwheat Pillow Reviews: Unique, Natural Comfort Choices

Back and Neck Alignment

Your neck and back cervical alignment truly should be paid particular attention to while you rest. Laying in a prone position for such a long amount of time can truly begin to place a strain on your spine and surrounding soft tissues if you have not taken care to support it correctly.

Sleep Position vs Pillow Comfort

The position you naturally fall into each night determines the type of pillow you should be considering. Buckwheat pillows are specific to back and side sleepers to help cradle and conform to the head and neck. Knowing how you sleep is the first step in deciding if a Buckwheat pillow may be a good choice for you.

— Back Sleep Position Needs

Back sleepers need a supportive yet thinner pillow choice to hold their head evenly between their shoulders and allow for enough fill to properly allow the neck to rest. Since the spine is better able to straighten and relax naturally in this position, it is considered one of the healthiest positions to sleep in.

— Stomach Sleep Position Needs

Stomach sleepers need a thin pillow, or better yet, no pillow at all for a level spine. Since you will have to turn your head to the side no matter what, thus somewhat compromising the cervical alignment, this is a position that you should take in very close care surrounding pillow choices.

— Side Sleep Position Needs

Side sleepers have to take care with more than just head and neck support. Shoulder, torso, and hip placement is just as important to keep the spine straight as you sleep, and if you have your head and neck properly set, it serves as a good guide to the rest of your body. These pillows should be thicker and more contouring as it needs to hold the head between the shoulders in a lateral position and fill the gap between the head and shoulders.

Buckwheat? In a Pillow?

So what exactly is buckwheat? And why or how is it used in a pillow? Buckwheat is a plant that produces a small, starchy seed often used in animal feeds, as well as a somewhat powdered form to make bread. These seeds are not what is used when we talk about a buckwheat pillow but rather the hulls or the thin, hard outer shell found surrounding the grain is what is being used as a fill in a buckwheat pillow.

These hulls are small, strong, have a slight aromatic odor, and move against each other well to conform and shape when pressure is applied to them. They also are hypoallergenic and are considered an excellent alternative to other natural pillow fills. Plus, they do not absorb heat, and they create air pockets for excellent airflow, making them a cool sleeping choice.

The claims that they improve sleep posture, relieve neck strain and tension, and reduce tension headaches and snoring have been made by many. Although they do make a slight rustling noise as you settle into them, this is not considered a game changer, and it shouldn’t take you long to forget this slight noise even exists.

History of Buckwheat Pillows

Buckwheat is a traditional fodder grain grown in Asia and has been utilized for centuries for both food and comfort when the hulls are repurposed as fills for pillows. Originally called the Sobakawa pillow in Japan and other Asian countries, this more traditional name is used interchangeably now to describe a traditional buckwheat hull style pillow. These hulls are easily replaceable and make the pillows adjustable- as most styles allow for the removal or addition of hulls to change loft for personal comfort needs.

Popular in Asian culture, these types of pillows have been used for the reduction of stress and anxiety as the correlation between treating the body and mind as one is well documented within these cultures. Although many early buckwheat pillow products were imported from Asia, they have gained ground within other parts of the world with farms throughout North America to meet growing demands of both the seed and hull for household uses.

You might be interested in: Do Buckwheat Pillows Attract Bugs?

Why Would You Want a Buckwheat Pillow?

As mentioned a few times, Buckwheat hull pillows have gained a following for a variety of reasons. To start, the way the hulls move against one another provide excellent airflow, and surprising malleability for confirmation to support your head and neck without the creation of uncomfortable pressure points. A headache, anxiety, and snoring relief also top the claims these pillows are known for, which may have something to do with the gentle pressure the hulls may provide against specific points on your head and neck.

— Buckwheat Pillow Care

Buckwheat pillows are surprisingly easy to care for. The casing is almost always removable for laundering and can come in a variety of materials, such as bamboo, silk, and cotton. Hulls are easily poured out (as they should not be washed) and can be replaced if they begin to break down with use. This utilization allows you to have a consistent pillow feel year after year without worry of replacing the entire pillow.

What to Consider When Choosing a Buckwheat Pillow

A buckwheat pillow may not be for everyone. I commented earlier that it does have a slight sound associated with it. This may, or may not, be a problem for consumers – depending on how sensitive they are to this type of thing. They also feel much different than what you may be used to as it is not a ‘soft’ material filling, but rather the shells of a seed you are laying your head down upon. Despite this, many reviewers who originally voiced their skepticism prior to use (myself included) eventually came to appreciate the comfort and quality of the product.

What is your sleep position?

• Described above is the type of pillow you should need depending on your sleep position. Traditional buckwheat pillows were made for back sleepers, although many side sleepers take full advantage of the comfort as well. Unfortunately, stomach sleepers probably will not find this a comfortable choice despite it being adjustable- although it isn’t outside the realm of possibility.

Do you have any allergies?

• Buckwheat hulls are naturally hypoallergenic and provide an excellent sleep surface for anyone sensitive to dust mites, pollens, sanders, etc as they do not collect easily within or on these types of pillows.

Do you sleep warm?

• The shape of buckwheat hulls support a free flow of air through the pillow, and since they are not absorbent, they do not retain heat or reflect it back upon the sleeper. If you struggle with sleeping hot no matter what you do, this may be a decent choice to consider.

Conclusion

Despite most buckwheat hull pillows being fairly similar in nature, slight differences in details surrounding fill amounts, materials used, and construction process do exist and can influence the overall feel of the pillow. So far, our favorite is the Hullo Buckwheat Pillow simply due to our personal experiences with it that support the claims made by the company, and the overall high ratings received for such a young product within the sleep industry- especially since negative ratings deal more with personal preferences rather than quality.

Recent Updates

October 12, 2021: The Bucky Utopia Neck Pillow has been added to this roundup as the best buckwheat pillow for travel due to consumer popularity.