Tips to Choosing Your Mattress for Life

Sleep is an important part of your daily routine—you spend about one-third of your time doing it. Quality sleep – and getting enough of it at the right times — is as essential to survival as food and water. Without sleep you can’t form or maintain the pathways in your brain that let you learn and create new memories, and it’s harder to concentrate and respond quickly.

The sleep cycle: A sleep cycle lasts about 90 minutes and during that time we move through five stages of sleep. The first four stages make up our non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, and the fifth stage is when rapid eye movement (REM) sleep occurs.

NREM sleep: Across these four stages we move from very light sleep during Stage 1 down to very deep sleep in Stage 4. It is very difficult to wake someone who is in Stage 4 sleep. Across NREM sleep, we have little muscle activity and our eyes do not typically move, but all of our muscles retain their ability to function.

REM sleep: As the name would imply – during this final stage of sleep, we have bursts of rapid eye movements. This is the stage of sleep in which most dreaming occurs. Our eyes are not constantly moving, but they do dart back and forth, up and down. These eye movements may be related to visual images of dreams, but that is not confirmed, and in general, the reason for these eye movements is still a mystery. Although our eyes are moving rapidly, the muscles that move our bodies are paralyzed (other important muscles, such as our heart and diaphragm continue to function normally).

The brain cycles through five distinct phases during sleep: stages 1, 2, 3, 4, and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. REM sleep makes up about 25% of your sleep cycle and first occurs about 70 to 90 minutes after you fall asleep. Because your sleep cycle repeats, you enter REM sleep several times during the night.

During REM sleep cycle, your brain and body are energized and dreaming occurs. REM is thought to be involved in the process of storing memories, learning, and balancing your mood, although the exact mechanisms are not well understood.

REM sleep begins in response to signals sent to and from different regions of the brain. Signals are sent to the brain’s cerebral cortex, which is responsible for learning, thinking, and organizing information. Signals are also sent to the spinal cord to shut off movement, creating a temporary inability to move the muscles (“paralysis”) in the arms and legs. Abnormal disruption of this temporary paralysis can cause people to move while they are dreaming. For example, this type of movement while dreaming can lead to injuries that could happen when a person runs into furniture while dreaming of catching a ball.

Many effects of a lack of sleep, such as feeling grumpy and not working at your best, are well known. Therefore choosing right mattress is important for you.

Hybrid mattresses are the latest fad in the mattress world. It seems like most manufacturers are coming out with a model or two. But what is a hybrid mattress and what are some of the pros.?

Hybrid mattresses combine two or more support systems, usually memory foam layers along with an innerspring system. Hybrid mattresses are a great way to experience the pressure relieving benefits of memory foam while retaining the classic feel of an innerspring mattress.

A hybrid is defined by Google as a “a thing made by combining two different elements.” In the case of hybrid mattresses, the two elements are old-school innerspring mattresses and specialty foam mattresses. A hybrid mattress will typically have coils (usually individually pocketed coils) and memory foam and/or latex on top.

If you’re well-versed in mattresses, you may have a question at this point.

Pros:

Since hybrid mattresses are just a variation of innerspring mattresses, the pros and cons of innersprings apply to hybrids as well. That is to say, they’re easier to move around in than all-foam mattresses and a little cheaper, but not quite as good at separating motion or contouring to your body. Here are a couple additional pros specific to hybrids:

1. Better at contouring to your body than more plain innerspring mattresses
2. Has a fairly unique feel that some people really like

Requirements Based on Sleeping Position

Guidelines for mattress firmness based on sleeping position preference:

Side sleepers need enough give in a mattress to allow hips and shoulders to sink while while still supporting the waist and lumbar region. Your spine should be straight and parallel to the floor when lying down. Plush to medium is likely the ideal firmness range for you.

Back sleepers need a supportive surface that supports natural alignment. Similar to when you are standing up straight, your spine should still have a slight curve, but there should be no more than a finger’s width of space between your back and the bed to avoid muscle tension. Beds in the medium-firm range will likely feel best.