This Mattress Topper Is So Good That It Makes My Insomnia (Somewhat) Bearable

Written by

Terri PousExecutive Editor at Apartment Therapy
Terri PousExecutive Editor at Apartment Therapy
After receiving my BS in Journalism from Northwestern University in 2012, I wrote and edited lifestyle stories at BuzzFeed, ran social media for Brides, and covered trending news for TIME.com. I love trivia and am a two-time Jeopardy! champ. In 2023, I wrote a book, How to Plan a Wedding.
published May 26, 2021
We independently select these products—if you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission. All prices were accurate at the time of publishing.
Post Image

Hi I’m Terri, and I have insomnia. I also, as of last November, have a memory foam mattress topper that somehow, against the odds, makes my nights of tossing and turning not only tolerable, but kind of… nice?

If you also have trouble falling or staying asleep, you know how awful it is to feel like there is not a single comfortable spot on your bed. You try out a promising new combination of arm, leg, and torso position — and inevitably, you find yourself hating it within minutes. Everything just seems wrong: your pillows, your room temperature, your bed size, and yes, your mattress. I’ve tried my fair share of memory foam and egg crate mattress toppers, and they honestly never seemed to do much in the way of comfort.

But last year, I was staying at my parents’ house, and sleeping on a bed with no mattress topper and I knew I needed something, anything, to cushion my restless corporeal form. I peeked at our Best List of Mattress Toppers, and tbh, stopped reading when I read, “Best Budget Mattress Topper: Allswell Energex Memory Foam Mattress Topper with Graphite.” I probably should’ve kept researching, but I was tired and my eyes didn’t want to read anymore, and good items for a low cost are an instant “hell yeah” from me.

I ordered the mattress in a queen size and was excited about its promises of “transferring heat away from the body” and “Energex Foam [that] conforms to the body for optimal pressure relief.” When it showed up, it was slightly smaller than my queen-sized mattress (and fits perfectly on my apartment’s full-sized bed, so there’s a chance I received the wrong size), but I was so excited to test it out that I didn’t care.

Within the first week of sleeping on it, I caught myself thinking, “This is so comfy,” multiple times. Even as my mind raced and I panicked about the low number of hours of sleep I was going to get, I thought, “Well, at least I can lay here feeling so supported and cradled.” Seriously! It’s not too soft and not too firm, it really is just right. It also more than compensated for the rock-hard mattress I’d been sleeping on even though it’s just two inches thick. I’m not really a hot sleeper, but the memory foam definitely doesn’t feel like it’s adding extra heat, which is a plus.

When it came time to finally leave my parents’ house, you better believe I schlepped this thing all the way back to my apartment. Months later, I still randomly marvel at how nice the memory foam feels on my back while I stare at the clock changing from 2:12 to 2:13 a.m. It hasn’t cured my insomnia (lolol), but there is something to be said for paying attention to your senses as a way to relax when you can’t sleep, and being so comfortable on a mattress topper really does help me do that.