Sleep is not a waste of time or a state of unconsciousness, but a necessary process for the regeneration of mind and body. Healthy and comfortable sleep can revive you overnight, but only if the bed – in which you spend a third of your life – is comfortable and adaptable. The bed is as old as man, and it has developed gradually. While its primordial predecessor was just a bare layer of leaves, straw, moss, and fur, today, interdisciplinary teams composed of experts from various fields deal with the construction and testing of bed systems.
Thanks to new materials and technologies, modern constructors and designers have made the most significant progress. A good bed enables complete muscle relaxation and the body’s natural position, which must regenerate the body’s strength through sleep with as little energy as possible. Everyone chooses the most comfortable position when sleeping, so there are no rules. For complete rest, the sleeper must feel safe from the noise or light.
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Mattresses
The body is most sensitive to that part of the bed that is in direct contact with it. Therefore, the mattress must have an adjustable surface and an elastic core to provide proper support to the back and ensure the whole body’s natural movements. It does not matter whether the mattress is hard or soft, but to properly distribute the body’s weight, which is entirely relieved. That is why the mattress is the most demanding product of the modern bed industry.
Numerous technologies have been developed that enable mattresses to adapt to all types of bodies. The mattress must regulate the bed climate, provide the body with optimal heat, moisture drainage, and air permeability. When a person gets up, he must return to the correct position. The upholstery must also meet specific conditions, as a hygienically suitable mattress must be easy to handle and maintain.
Old mattresses, filled with seagrass, cotton, wool, etc., were not elastic. They collected dust, and soon dents would form in the middle. That opened up space for new materials, so today, they are filled with various materials that are subject to elastic deformation under load. Such mattresses meet modern standards of good sleep and enable anatomically correct body position.
Elastic springs, which enable the construction of various combinations in the bearing core with filling from plant, animal, and synthetic materials, bring a significant turning point in constructing the mattress.
Buyers Guide and FAQs
Five questions before choosing a mattress
1. How do you sleep?
● If you sleep on your back, in a supine position, on your back, you should choose hard mattresses.
● If you sleep on your side, you might want to look for a less firm mattress that allows the shoulder to sink until you find a comfortable position slightly.
2. How much do you weigh?
● If your weight is more than average, you will need firm mattresses that offer good support. On a soft bed, you would sink excessively.
Lighter people also need more adjustable mattresses, which adapt to their shape to distribute the weight better.
3. Do you move a lot?
● If you move a lot while you sleep, a somewhat harder mattress that allows you to turn without effort is convenient for you. You would sink too low on a soft bed, and it would be difficult to turn, which is uncomfortable.
4. Are you hot?
● If you are hot, sweat easily, or live in a warm place, spring mattresses may be more convenient for you, as they are better ventilated and more relaxed.
● If you are cold or live in a cold area, the foam, latex, or viscoelastic models keep the heat more)
*Additional questions
● If you want an articulated base, you need a flexible mattress (foam, latex, or pocket springs).
● If you are allergic to dust or asthmatic, it is recommended to use a foam or latex mattress with a washable cover (unless, of course, you are allergic to latex).
When to change the mattress?
If there is something familiar in all cases, it is the recommendation by many competent associations to change the mattress every ten years, both for reasons of hygiene and comfort. When the bed is in bad condition, you will sleep poorly, it will cause muscle aches, and you will wake up moody and with a feeling of not having rested.
What is the best time to buy a mattress?
If you were wondering what’re the best times to buy a new mattress, please take a look below:
● Either late winter or early spring. There are a lot of discounts retailers offer between February and May.
● Holiday weekends. It would be best to look for sales on Presidents Day, Veterans Day, 4th of July, Memorial Day, Labor Day, and Black Friday.
● Plenty of reasonable offers online, anytime.
Best Month to Buy a New Bed
If you want to get the best price, you should start looking for your new bed in May. That’s when most of the firms want to get rid of the older models to roll out the latest products next month.
Average Cost of a Mattress
The average price of mattresses that will fulfill most of your needs is between $700–$1,800. Everything less than that won’t last long cause it is more likely to be of bad quality.
Online – Lower Prices
As we have mentioned above, online shopping is not only comfortable and fast, but you can buy an exciting range of bed mattresses at low prices. Online sales offer lower prices, promotions, and savings, as well as cheaper delivery costs.
Should You Buy a Used Mattress?
Buying a second-hand mattress is not recommended, mostly because of cleanliness and hygiene. Beds are personal and intimate, both because each person has characteristics that make them choose one model and not another, as well as the fact that we spend many hours on them, giving them our shape and smell.
We do not know the use that the mattress has suffered. If its previous owner was a child, it might be that he liked to jump on it, or the bed contains traces of pee. If it was a heavy sleeper, the mattress might have lost some of its firmness, and so we can give you a dozen examples.
Let’s see in more detail why they are not recommended in general. While we sleep, our body eliminates dead cells, sweat, and other fluids that make a mattress a suitable habitat for the proliferation of mites and bacteria. Sleeping with our own “waste” is one thing, but sleeping on a used bed, these “bugs” can cause health problems such as allergies and respiratory problems.
Also, a used mattress can be dirty. As we have mentioned before, the previous owner could have been a child or older person and may have urinated in it. Or it could have been a person with poor hygiene or odor problems and foot fungus, etc. All this is impregnated in a mattress and may not be detected at first glance.
On the other hand, each sleeper has a more common posture that causes the mattress to deform on some sides more than on others. This “deformation” can affect our sleep quality, and that the body suffers, feeling discomfort or back pain mainly.
When we buy a mattress, we must consider its solidity, firmness, the material from which it is made, if it has springs or springs, rubber or foaming, etc. And in a second-hand mattress, these characteristics may be deteriorated or have lost their initial warranty.
Therefore, we recommend you buy brand new beds for your hygiene, comfort, and economy (durability of the mattress), leaving aside second-hand mattresses’ option.
The 5 Best Places to Buy a Mattress
We highly recommend the following places:
- Amerisleep
- Saatva
- Bad Bath & Beyond
- Purple
- Mattress Firm
Is Mattress Firm an excellent place to buy a mattress?
It certainly is because it is one of the best mattress retailers in the USA. You can pick one of their stores nationwide.
How do I get the best price on a mattress?
First of all, you should research the subject and then visit the chosen stores and see their offers. Also, don’t make a purchase right away. It would be best if you visited a comparison shop first and pick the best price.
What are the best mattresses?
The following is the list of Top 3 mattresses on the market this year:
- Nectar (impressive when it comes to its performance)
- Helix Midnight (if you are a side sleeper, this could be the best option for you)
- Wink Bed (if you suffer from back pain, you might want to consider buying this one)
How do you know when to change the mattress?
We often ask ourselves whether our mattress, which we have slept on every night for many years, is doing its job. And we ask ourselves this question when we feel, rather, when we experience (first hand) that something is not right in our rest.
Some factors tell you that your mattress needs a definitive rest since it has already done its job of giving you the restful sleep you need every night. In the following lines, we will provide you with some tips to take them into account.
Mattress age
We have previously mentioned that the average life of a mattress is estimated at ten years. Of course, this has its nuances, as we will see in the next point. Over time, the materials from which the mattress is made to suffer progressive wear will damage sleep quality night after night.
Frequency of usage
The life of your mattress will depend on whether you use it daily or if it is a mattress for sporadic use. As you can imagine, the wear of a bed that you sleep on every day, night after night, for many years is much greater than the one you use only to sleep sporadically on weekends, which will last you for a while longer. But beware, using your mattress from time to time does not mean that its life will be twice as long, only that it will hold you a little longer.
You wake up tired
Every day you are looking forward to bedtime to lie on your bed and sleep like a log. And at that time, two situations can arise.
One of them is that even if a bomb falls next to you, you will not be able to wake up; not even the noise of a fly wanting to joke could wake you up. But despite sleeping soundly through the night, you wake up tired, as if you’ve only slept two or three hours. And when the alarm goes off, and you get to your feet (you don’t know how), you wonder how this can happen to you?
The other situation that occurs is the opposite that you cannot sleep. Despite being very tired from having had a day full of activities (work, home, children, a little sport, shopping, your social life, etc.), the time comes when you lie in bed, you relax, but you can’t fall asleep.
To sum it up, if you wake up tired or can’t sleep, whatever the reason, it is a signal to change the mattress.
Additional tips for buying the right mattress
Quality research has shown that a sleeping mattress loses its characteristics after 8 to 10 years and no longer provides an adequate comfort level. If the bed is such that it is not possible to change the mattress, it is time for a new bed.
Before you go shopping, you should decide for yourself what exactly you need: whether they are double beds or so-called “single” beds, how much space you have and what is the interior of the room for which you are buying a mattress. First of all, set your budget.
How to choose the right mattresses?
Two simple indicators will allow you to choose the ideal mattress for your body quickly:
1. Mattresses are too hard for you if you can run your hand under the spine in the kidney line while lying on your back, which means that the whole region does not relax but stays tense throughout the night. The consequence of this is very painful mornings.
2. Mattresses are too soft if you have difficulty turning from one side to the other. The spine is in an incorrect position; that is, you fall into the mattress. Then there is another side effect, increased accumulation of heat and moisture under you.
Ideal mattresses for your body hold the spine to follow its natural shape. If you are lying on your back, your spine must have a slightly pronounced S shape, and while lying on your side, your spine must remain straight.
Important factors
Quality mattresses should:
- Provide optimal body support at all points and positions;
- Be of optimal hardness, i.e., softness, strength, and elasticity;
- Properly distribute weight and surface forces and prevent the occurrence of counter-pressures;
- Adapt to body shape and temperature;
- Freely release the accumulated moisture;
- Have hypoallergenic and antibacterial properties;
- Are inaudible, do not creak or produce noise;
- Have a removable cover.
Final Word
The low quality of sleep is one of the leading causes of poor performance and ailments, and it is proven that 80% has to do with the quality of the mattress we sleep on. That is why you should not take lightly the decision to buy a mattress since our rest’s quality will affect all facets of our day-to-day life.
You can take advantage of so many opportunities to buy an excellent mattress for an incredibly discounted price.
This information will save you a lot of time and will keep you from visiting some salons where you will not find what you need on offer!