I couldn’t do much about the neighborhood’s new motorcycle club, so I did something about the mattress.
My back and I live together in a one-bedroom apartment. As we’ve gotten older, sleep has become a problem.
How to get a good night’s sleep?
“Don’t pay your bills and then hop into bed,” says Dr. Daniel Wagner, the medical director of the Sleep-Wake Disorder Center at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center.
Good advice; I intend to take it. But my back wanted facts it could act upon.
“Consider your bed carefully,” says Dr. Gary Zammit, the director of the Sleep Disorders Institute at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York. “It amazes me when I go in a bedding store and see how people select a bed. This is a place where you’re going to spend a third of your life.”
It should have been obvious from the start. A mattress is going to be your worst enemy or your most important friend. My back brought it up first. And then again and again, every night as the light went out. A bed is supposed to be one’s island of calm in a blue sea of sleep. We (my back and I) slept on a hard road in a storm.
As a middle-aged adult, I had been sleeping on what were basic graduations from what I had been sleeping on in college: a pad. The pad eventually took a step up to a cotton-batting futon. The big technological advance: It wasn’t on the floor. It had a nice Aalto frame, but it was unleavened by theory of any kind. It lay there; we lay on it. It was 10 years old.
Problems with my back prompted a general review of the situation. I began looking at new mattresses.
Like seating, bedding involves ergonomic issues.
“What you want in a bed is similar to what you want in a chair,” says Dr. John J. Kella, an ergonomics consultant. “A combination of firmness or support and softness or comfort.”
What you are trying to achieve is good back position, or straight spine alignment, just as in a chair. Adjustability and flexibility are key in a chair; the same degree of versatility is key in a bed.
A sleeper shifts position throughout the night and needs a sleeping surface that changes, too, preserving the spine’s alignment. If the bed is too firm, it won’t have the yield to cup the body at points like the hips and shoulders. If the bed is too soft, the body will sag.
Whether a sleeper has a problem back or not, hard is not good. Contrary to popular belief, the back doesn’t have to be punished for its complaints.
A combination of firmness and give is the working principle behind the most common bedding system: a mattress containing coil springs atop a box spring, stacked on a frame. The springs in both provide support; padding provides surface comfort.
Kella cautions that each component be taken seriously, from the frame up.
“Don’t accept a free frame as part of a bedding deal,” he says. “It usually doesn’t have a center crossbar. You need a frame with good reinforcement throughout.”
A good steel or wood box spring will distribute the body’s weight evenly but have some give and flexibility at the center. Kella suggests replacing box springs and mattresses together.
“If you put an excellent mattress on bad or broken springs, you’re going to lose your advantage,” he says.
A spring mattress is constructed of coils and padding.
“Coils with their firmness and stability are good for spinal alignment,” Kella says. “Padding relaxes the muscles and helps the body avoid pressure points. If the mattress is too firm, you’ll tense up.”
The number of coils in the mattress is important. An ergonomically desirable mattress will have at least 660, Kella says.
“The coil gauge can play a role too,” he adds. “It can go up to 13 gauge, but the higher the number, the less strength.”
The top padding provides the most immediate impression of a mattress. It is typically several layers of cotton, felt, fiber or wool. The top pad might also be foam; with that, high technology enters the equation.
“Foam is really a space-age refinement,” Kella says. “It gives. It has built-in movement independence, flexibility and responsiveness to your sleeping positions.”
The drawback has been disintegration. Older foams dissolved into bouncing dirt. But new foams, including an open-cell foam developed for NASA in 1970 that is now becoming popular in back-friendly bedding, have lifetimes of 10 years and up–longer than is generally advisable to keep a mattress and box spring.
Though a warranty will typically run 10 to 15 years for a high-quality set, Kella suggests reviewing a bed’s performance after five to seven years. Quick fixes like bed boards or add-ons like egg-crate foam won’t extend the life of shot box springs or sagging mattresses, he says.
“Start fresh,” Kella advises. Saving what you would spend on a new mattress “is going to cost you much more than that in chiropractic services.”
Open-cell foam is variously called ergonomic foam, memory foam or Tempurpedic foam by different manufacturers. It has a slow, exact give-and-take to body weight as each cushioning cell exhausts or admits air. It is also vaguely disquieting; the foam retains the impression of a hand for several minutes after it has been lifted. It is also temperature-sensitive. Cold air makes it firmer, hot air makes it softer.
“Foam on coil tends to give you more of a deep support,” he says. “But the slow compression of the foam gives you support through the whole shape of your body.”
Despite expert advice, the ultimate test of a mattress will be personal preference.
“Try out a mattress,” Kella says. “Once you’ve lain on your back, then turn on your side. You want to be able to keep your spine straight in both positions.”
As for a final decision, first impressions may not be enough. An hour in a store may not be adequate. Most mattress showrooms have a return policy, if a trial seems advised.
