How I Found the Mattress of My Dreams (Yes, You Can Too!)

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We spend one-third of our lives in bed: Choose a mattress carefully.

(FOTOLIA)

Whenever I tell friends that my mattress is decades old and that I have low-back pain, their eyes pop open. This repeated facial expression has prompted me to think that, yes, there could be a connection. Another clue is an experience I had recently when sleeping on a fabulously comfortable hotel mattress.

My husband tried to pry my fingers from the mattress corners, but I wouldn’t budge. I wanted to live there. Time for a new mattress.

That’s just what the Better Sleep Council, the educational arm of the International Sleep Products Association in Alexandria, Va., told me. Achy mornings and satisfying sleeps away from home are big hints that my mattress is so over. In fact, if I go by my warranty, my mattress was over some time ago. Though warranties may be good for 10 years or so, they typically cover defects, not comfort or support.

And comfort is what begins to sag after five to seven years. “A worn mattress is like an old running shoe,” says Bert Jacobson, a professor of health and human performance at Oklahoma State University. “It loses its support and its comfort.” It also fails the all-important neutrality test. According to chiropractor Scott Bautch, an ergonomics expert and past president of the American Chiropractic Association’s Council on Occupational Health, “The goal is for your spine to be neutral. If your mattress allows your spine to curve up or down, that’s not healthy for blood circulation or for resting your muscles.”

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Americans know a thing or two about unhealthy rest. In fact, 7 out of 10 of us have trouble sleeping (and I’m definitely one of them, as I’ve come to think of 3 to 4 a.m. as reading hour), according to the National Sleep Foundation. Pain, pregnancy, menopause, or insomnia can make sleep a childhood memory. And not getting a full snooze—around seven to nine hours a night—makes for less-than-pleasant breakfast chatter. More serious is the effect of sleeplessness on health: It muddles thinking and may increase the risks of obesity, diabetes, viral illnesses, heart disease, and depression.

Of course, mattresses aren’t miracle workers, says Clete Kushida, MD, director of the Stanford University Center for Human Sleep Research. “The small contribution mattresses make is a surface that doesn’t cause pain and stress to muscles, that allows you to lie comfortably.”