Pluto’s Pod pillow is among the newer options for fliers looking for support while sleeping.

It’s the holy grail of long-distance economy travel: a pillow that can actually help you get some sleep.

Falling asleep on a plane has long been a tall order for fliers. Lately, it’s gotten worse. Ever thinner chairs and cramped confines are a recipe for a restless journey. The end result is fliers buying body pillows, neck pillows, horseshoe pillows and whatever else they heard about from a friend or saw on social media to get some sleep.

Many have come to the same conclusion: The old-school U-shaped pillows found in virtually every airport gift shop across the globe aren’t working. It’s time to try something—anything—else.

Joe Wood, 63 years old, has racked up close to 1 million frequent-flier miles traveling for work. He says he has tried all sorts of sleep aids. He found microbead-filled neck pillows were bulky to carry and provided little to no support. He then resorted to fashioning his own pillow out of airline-supplied blankets.

He has finally settled on a travel pillow from Cabeau. He likes how the pillow can be compressed to fit in a small carrying case, but says it isn’t a perfect solution.

“It’s the best I’ve had, but it’s still only maybe a seven [out of 10],” says Wood, who lives in Covington, Ky.

Cabeau plans to offer a new pillow in 2025.

A tired tradition

The first patent in the U.S. for those standard, horseshoe-like neck pillows dates to the 1920s. The design of many of the items on the market today arguably hasn’t changed much. One scholar likened the standard neck pillow to “a weirdly sexual caterpillar or a slug that has come to rest on your shoulders.”

This design takes a one-size-fits-all approach that isn’t necessarily suited to many travelers, says Katie McCullar, a postdoctoral fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston whose research focuses on sleep. They are often the same thickness throughout, which can push a person’s neck forward uncomfortably. The materials used in many cases can retain heat, making for potentially sweaty slumber.

Plus, the lack of support at the front of a person’s neck can lead to the dreaded neck bob. “Think about an egg in an egg carton,” says David Sternlight, Cabeau’s chief executive. “If the egg carton is level with the bottom of the egg, it’s just going to fall over.”

Cabeau’s pillows feature an adjustable strap that sits below the chin to prevent the head from tilting forward.

Sternlight was inspired to launch his travel-products company after a torturous trip to Hong Kong. He found himself envious of those around him sleeping. He was also unsatisfied with the classic neck pillow he bought for the trip home.

Cabeau’s pillows feature an adjustable strap that sits below the chin to prevent the head from tilting forward. Some models have an additional strap on the back that can attach to a seat’s headrest to provide further insurance against a dipping neck.

Sternlight says he chose to stick with the horseshoe configuration for Cabeau’s neck-pillow lineup to promote airflow below wearers’ chins to keep them cool in their sleep.

Sarah Bartol, a flight nurse who lives in a Toronto suburb, has come to rely on the Cabeau, along with an eye mask. She says the pillow’s design prevents her head from jutting forward like it has with other pillows, and the materials used were breathable so she doesn’t overheat when wearing it.

“I can sleep with that on for like four hours,” she says. “It’s as good of a quality of sleep as you can get in economy.”

Beyond the curve

Other companies have eschewed the U-shape entirely or gained traction by providing the wearer with an escape from the outside world.

Pluto sells the Pod, which combines a cushion that can wrap around the neck like a brace, a hood that can be pulled over the head for privacy and an eye mask that can block out light. Ostrichpillow’s Original Napping Pillow almost fully encases the wearer’s head like a large cocoon or marshmallow.

The Ostrichpillow stands out for how much of the user’s head it covers.

Not every traveler is sold on the approach, given how over the top these models can look.

“That’s just kind of ridiculous to me,” says Dustin Stone, a 43-year-old from Dallas who owns an e-commerce business.

Stone’s preferred device is the J Pillow, another design that crosses a standard pillow with a scarflike mechanism.

“It’s not ugly,” he says. An added bonus: The fleece-like cover doesn’t catch on Stone’s beard.

Another popular option comes from travel gear company Trtl, which offers a lineup of pillows featuring a support mechanism that almost resembles a neck brace cut in half and is covered by fabric that wraps around the neck like a scarf.

The All-in-One Ultimate Travel Pillow from Travelrest resembles an extended apostrophe. It can hang from a person’s shoulder or be worn across the body like a messenger bag, with a wider section for the user’s head.

Ultimately, doctors say that for all the innovation out there, a true panacea short of a lie-flat seat for an in-flight slumber may never come.

“Differences in body shape and size and an individual’s spine anatomy may always limit the ability of any single product to be the right one for everyone,” says Dr. Scott Kreiner, president of the North American Spine Society.

Erin Peile, a Pilates instructor from Canberra, Australia, says she immediately wakes up if her head drops. She settled on a memory-foam pillow from Snugl after trying several other options, though it has proven far from perfect.

The Trtl’s design resembles a neck brace.

“Honestly, no pillow really allows me to get any deep sleep,” she says. “They just make me a little more comfortable enough to drift off here and there with some support for my neck.”