There’s something about sleeping on a flat mattress that doesn’t quite cut it for me. Between her knees knocking together and her back feeling like it’ll cave in at any moment, a gal just needs a little extra support while she sleeps. That’s why I was so thrilled to be able to test the already editor-approved Yana 360° body pillow, a U-shaped bolster pillow ideal for folks with back issues, problems falling asleep, those who are pregnant and require more support at the abdomen and just about anyone who’s spent an inordinate amount of time tossing and turning before finding the perfect sleep position.
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If you toss and turn for hours trying to find a comfortable sleeping position, you’ll love Yana Sleep’s marquee product, the 360° Body Pillow.
What is the Yana body pillow?
Designed in a semicircular fashion, the Yana body pillow provides support pretty much wherever you need it. The pillow is made from your choice of natural latex or cooling gel, and it sits at 55 inches long, 28.5 inches wide and 8.5 inches thick. It’s enclosed in a dual-sided organic cotton and bamboo velour casing that’s just as soft as it sounds, and to keep it clean, you can select between the classic pillowcase or the butter-soft eucalyptus pillowcase. All materials used in the making of the pillow are Oeko-Tex Standard 100 certified, which means they’ve been tested for substances known to harm human health. It rings in at $199, which certainly isn’t cheap, but you can’t put a price on deep sleep.
What we liked about it
It feels like a hug you never knew you needed. I’ve spent the entirety of my life sleeping with several pillows simultaneously not only to support my head but to prop up and add an element of cushioning to the likes of my knees, back, stomach, shoulders and more. This isn’t only a nuisance to my husband, but the sheer lightness of a pillow means it drifts off into the distance of my bed, only for me to have to rearrange my “fortress” every night at 3 a.m. I was shocked at how well the Yana body pillow fulfills that same need while staying cemented in one place. Like the human-sized dog bed I reviewed a couple months ago, this pillow provides not just a physical sense of support but an emotional one. It helps me nail that perfect sleep position so many of us desire yet never know how to achieve or maintain.
While I prefer a maximum level of fullness, I appreciate that you can adjust your desired level of support by zipping open the pillow itself and removing some of that shredded latex fill. It’s relatively low maintenance in that the pillow cover is washable and holds up well when tumble dried on low (just be prepared to solicit a friend or family member to save time on putting it back on). The Tencel eucalyptus cotton pillow cover I got with mine is so soft I’ve decided the brand needs to immediately release one for standard-size pillows so I can feel it on my face with the rest of my 4,000 pillows. Said cooling material paired with the cooling gel pillow variety I opted for is just *chef’s kiss* on a hot summer evening.
While I have no qualms about using the pillow alone, I like that my husband can use one side for himself so I feel less guilty for the way it takes up over half of our queen bed. What’s more is that it’s ideal not just for sleeping. I never know how to position myself when I’m reading in bed (do I self-induce a concussion by leaning against my headboard?), yet this pillow perfectly props me up whether I’m lying on my back or my side.
Yana Pillow
What we didn’t like about it
The thing is inescapably huge. In the rare occasion I wanted to do away with it, I felt like I had to fight a sumo wrestler just to move it a couple inches or throw it off my bed, only for it to collect floor dust. It’s by no means heavy at 16 pounds with the entirety of its fill intact, but it’s hard to get a grip on it, accumulate enough clearance underneath to move it without dragging it on the bed or floor and even store it. While the brand says you can tie its “legs” in a neat little bow for easy storage, it doesn’t get much more compact. Be prepared for it to take up a lot of storage space or for it to compromise the way you make your bed in the morning (read: There’s no graceful way to do it — either it looks like an unruly teen placed a doll under their covers so they can sneak out of bed in the middle of the night or it clunkily sits atop your comforter until you’re ready to place it under the sheets when you’re ready to use it).
While this ultimately comes down to personal preference, I would have preferred the bolsters to be a little plusher. On several occasions, I had to place my most feather-soft pillow between my head and the Yana just to offset some of that neck-irritating firmness. At the very least, the level of firmness mimics a human body, which can be comforting or terrifying, depending on where you’re at in therapy. A couple times, I woke up in a cold sweat panicking that I was trapped in the arms of a stranger. I was able to laugh myself back to sleep, as one does.
Bottom line
If you’ve recently been fidgeting in your sleep only to lose several minutes of precious shut-eye a night, it might be worth it to invest in this cuddle-in-a-box our readers can’t stop buying. The Yana pillow provides a feeling of being contoured, supported and hugged in all the right places, and its velvety organic pillowcase adds profoundly to its comforting properties. Had I discovered this body pillow earlier, I would have been a far more rested and happier human being.
