Oh for a Good Nights Sleep! How to Choose a Good Quality Mattress
Oh for a good nights sleep How would you rate your sleep? Do you or your spouse sleep peacefully or twist and turn all night.
In the morning are you refreshed or exhausted? The quality of our sleep has a major effect on our performance the following day, yet how much care do we take in selecting our bed - where we spend around a third of our lives? If we are buying a car we will probably do research and compare different models and then take some test drives to see which one suits us the best - yet most of us spend more time in our bed than in our car - and we probably keep the bed a lot longer too! When we select a bed we should do at least as much research to see what specification would suit us best, and then test them out.
The shops will hardly lend us one for a 'test drive', but we should lay on different ones in your favorite sleeping positions to compare how they really feel.
Don't be embarrassed as you are literally making an investment for your future - sitting on the edge or prodding the mattress will tell you very little.
Visit different stores perhaps more than once until you are sure you have found the right one for you.
Listen to the different sales people but rely on your own judgement as they can be biased - or wrong.
A good test is to lie on the mattress on your side (using a pillow for your head ) and keep your body straight.
If you feel the pressure where your shoulders and hips touch the mattress it is probably too hard.
Your shoulders and hips should sink in so your spine should be straight.
Then lie on your back, again you should not feel much pressure on your hips and shoulders nor should your body sink into the mattress and sag in the middle.
If the mattress is too hard your body has to adapt by twisting into a comfortable position, and you tend to move a lot in your sleep.
Unless your partner is a similar weight and build you would both likely benefit from a dual tension mattress which is firmer on one side of the bed.
We all know the difference between clothing made from cotton or man made fibre on a hot day - the cotton feels much cooler.
This is because the natural cotton wicks away moisture.
The same is true of our mattress, man made fillings, especially foam, can feel hot and clammy, while natural fillings feel cooler and dryer.
We each perspire up to half a pint a night, over the life of a bed that can be hundreds of gallons, a lot of this will end up in your mattress and has to find its way back to the atmosphere.
Natural fillings are much better at doing this.
If you roll back your duvet to the foot of the bed during the day it helps the mattress to release this moisture.
The best filling is pure new wool.
Wool can absorb twice as much moisture as cotton, and 30 times as much as polyester, which is in turn better than foam.
Top quality wool may be an expensive filling but is simply the best available.
We may think of wool as warm but as a mattress filling it is the 'coolest around' said Alan of Pure Rest Beds which is why we use generous amounts of pure new wool fillings in our mattresses and toppers - you can't beat it as a filling - you can find more details on our website see below.
It really feels cool in summer as well as cosy in winter by regulating our sleeping environment.
A top quality bed will of course cost more than a basic one, but it truly is an investment for your future and as with any financial investment, careful selection of the right product does pay dividends!
In the morning are you refreshed or exhausted? The quality of our sleep has a major effect on our performance the following day, yet how much care do we take in selecting our bed - where we spend around a third of our lives? If we are buying a car we will probably do research and compare different models and then take some test drives to see which one suits us the best - yet most of us spend more time in our bed than in our car - and we probably keep the bed a lot longer too! When we select a bed we should do at least as much research to see what specification would suit us best, and then test them out.
The shops will hardly lend us one for a 'test drive', but we should lay on different ones in your favorite sleeping positions to compare how they really feel.
Don't be embarrassed as you are literally making an investment for your future - sitting on the edge or prodding the mattress will tell you very little.
Visit different stores perhaps more than once until you are sure you have found the right one for you.
Listen to the different sales people but rely on your own judgement as they can be biased - or wrong.
A good test is to lie on the mattress on your side (using a pillow for your head ) and keep your body straight.
If you feel the pressure where your shoulders and hips touch the mattress it is probably too hard.
Your shoulders and hips should sink in so your spine should be straight.
Then lie on your back, again you should not feel much pressure on your hips and shoulders nor should your body sink into the mattress and sag in the middle.
If the mattress is too hard your body has to adapt by twisting into a comfortable position, and you tend to move a lot in your sleep.
Unless your partner is a similar weight and build you would both likely benefit from a dual tension mattress which is firmer on one side of the bed.
We all know the difference between clothing made from cotton or man made fibre on a hot day - the cotton feels much cooler.
This is because the natural cotton wicks away moisture.
The same is true of our mattress, man made fillings, especially foam, can feel hot and clammy, while natural fillings feel cooler and dryer.
We each perspire up to half a pint a night, over the life of a bed that can be hundreds of gallons, a lot of this will end up in your mattress and has to find its way back to the atmosphere.
Natural fillings are much better at doing this.
If you roll back your duvet to the foot of the bed during the day it helps the mattress to release this moisture.
The best filling is pure new wool.
Wool can absorb twice as much moisture as cotton, and 30 times as much as polyester, which is in turn better than foam.
Top quality wool may be an expensive filling but is simply the best available.
We may think of wool as warm but as a mattress filling it is the 'coolest around' said Alan of Pure Rest Beds which is why we use generous amounts of pure new wool fillings in our mattresses and toppers - you can't beat it as a filling - you can find more details on our website see below.
It really feels cool in summer as well as cosy in winter by regulating our sleeping environment.
A top quality bed will of course cost more than a basic one, but it truly is an investment for your future and as with any financial investment, careful selection of the right product does pay dividends!
Source...