Sleeping on the right mattress

Finding the right mattress to suit your body and sleeping habits is essential to back health and also to getting a relaxing and uninterrupted night of sleep.

Until quite recently the general consensus of opinion on mattress support was that a mattress should be firm or even hard. This view held for many years and most still have the opinion that an overly soft mattress is not good for the health of the back, muscles or other parts of the skeletal structure.

What a mattress is supposed to do has however been open to much debate over recent years and the very firm mattress has now become less favoured. Orthopedically the "perfect" mattress should support the back in its natural figure S shape and a firm or hard mattress is no better at doing this than a soft one. In fact it may be less suitable!

New mattress materials

The last 20 years have seen a new material called visco elastic memory foam introduced into the world of mattresses and this material is thought by many to have superior orthopedic support qualities to conventional mattresses.

Visco elastic memory foam compresses and shapes itself around the person sleeping on it and its sensitivity to weight means that it curves and profiles around the natural shape of the body and not the other way around.

Because of this, memory foam beds are perceived to have very good orthopedic properties and they rest the back and spine in its natural shape. This also holds true for the other parts of the body and the material has the ability to constantly adapt to whoever is sleeping on it in whatever position.

Another similar and comparatively new material to the world of mattresses is Latex foam. This pliable material can also shape itself around whoever is sleeping on it and it provides the same kind of contouring support as memory foam.

In summary, what both of these mattress material have is the ability to shape themselves around the person sleeping on them rather than forcing the body to adapt to the flat surface of the mattress. This means that they can keep the important muscles, organs and joints of the body in the most natural and rested positions to ensure the best kind of sleep.

Getting to sleep at night

One of the subjects that I will be covering will be sleep and the benefits of orthopedic beds and mattresses.

Getting a good night’s sleep is critical to physical and mental health and having a good quality supportive bed is one component necessary for this to be achieved.

The other important factor is of course preparing yourself for sleep and this may not be quite as simple a task as many might think. To do it properly requires planning, routine and a winding down period.

Most people go to bed at variable times, they sometimes try to sleep immediately after completing a mentally or physically taxing task, and then have trouble falling asleep.

For most people sleep is not an instant process when the head touches the pillow. Instead it requires the body and mind to gradually lower the levels of activity and for a vacant mental state of mind to occur.

If you have a lot on your mind, or if you have just finished a complex mental task, then getting to sleep quickly may be a problem.

Think of the body and mind like a car. If you take it out and drive around the car will get to a working temperature and it will take time for the oil and mechanical parts to cool off again. The human physiology is similar. If you do something active (mentally or physically) you need a cooling-off period afterwards to get the body back to a more rest full state.

For some good advice on all aspects of sleeping, see the http://www.sleepcouncil.com/ website. You will find tips about sleeping, beds and mattresses. It is a good independent source of information.