About Sleep & Mattresses

Sleep is when our bodies and minds rest, rebuild, and rejuvenate. The need is for deep, restful sleep; for most of us, 7-8 hours each day. 

The goal is spinal alignment and pressure relief for shoulders & hips.  To achieve this, the straw ticking of yester-year has been replaced by various densities and qualities of:

*  Traditional Poly Foam

*  Bio-Friendly (Soy Oils) Foam

*  Latex (natural rubber) Foam

*  Memory Foam

I can almost hear you smartphone lovers: When I say that mattresses are about technology, you roll your

eyes. The speed of a mattress does not double every 18 months, and mattress technology is not high tech! But it is technology that builds the machines, and it's science that improves the qualities of various densities, qualities, and firmness of foam.

Whatever the top of mattress is made of, the bottom of the mattress features one of 3 general types:

*  Tethered Springs

*  Pocketed Springs

*  High-Density Foam

Each type has its advantages.  Pocketed springs operate independently of one another, so for side-sleepers they're great for providing pressure relief for shoulders and hips.  Pocketed coils tend to flex to match body shape.  They also minimize motion transfer.  This means that when someone moves a sleep partner usually does not feel it enough to awaken. 

"Tethered" springs are bound together, and thereby coils flex and move with adjacent coils.  This means that most pressure relief for a side-sleeper's shoulder or hip must come from the foams on top of the springs.  Motion transfer is also greater - particularly on lower-end mattresses. 

High-Density Foam is used by Tempurpedic and its imitators.  In the mattress industry, this type of mattress is known as, "Specialty Sleep".  The specialty sleep category, by the way, is growing in double-digits, while traditional spring-based mattresses suffered a modest decline in year-over-year sales from 2010 to 2011. 

Note that springs are less expensive to produce than are foams, so mattresses that are made of foam, top-to-bottom tend to be premium priced.  At RC Willey I have a great selection in all three types.  Together we can figure out what is just right for you.

Keep Smilin'!