Signs For A New Mattress
You’re not sleeping like you used to, and it’s not always plain to see why. Your mattress is the culprit nine times out of ten, and we’re here to show you why. We’re going to cover everything from little things that you don’t quite notice at first, to the big sore pink thumbs that are looking you right in the face. Let’s get you sleeping better, starting with the realization of why you need to get a better mattress.
1. It’s Older Than a First Grader
Mattresses are a long-term investment, but just because you spent a lot on your initial mattress doesn’t mean you need to keep it around. Possessions die out, and if you spent around seven-hundred bucks on that mattress, we’re about to shed some harsh truth on you. A mattress should be thrown out every eight years and replaced with a new one, but if money has you down, think of it this way. There’s 2,922 days in an eight-year period, which means you spent $0.24 per day to sleep on that mattress. Sounds like you got your money’s worth, right?
Eight years, and it’s garbage. If it’s a spring mattress, those coils are going to give out on you way before you know it. Your weight fluctuates over eight years, you might have a partner sleeping in bed with you, you might not. Either way, it’s all varying degrees of stress that play out over time.
2. You Don’t Feel Rested In the Morning
What does it mean to feel rested? If you shoot up in the morning and immediately feel aches, if you have a haze over your head for more than thirty minutes in the morning, if you have to curl your back to shake off the pain, it’s not the right mattress for you. It doesn’t have to be old or worn in, it can just be a bad quality mattress that isn’t letting you get a moment’s rest.
Feeling rested is all about setting the tone for the rest of the day. Avoiding that 2:00 PM grogginess that falls over the office, things like that. When you sleep, your mind and body are recovering from the day. You need to set up a good place for your body to relax and rejuvenate, or else you’ll be left with that gnawing feeling of “Did I even sleep last night?”.
3. Creaking and Croning
If you sit down on that spring or coil mattress, it’s just supposed to accept you, your posture, your body weight, everything. If it starts giving you that creaky sound, like you’re opening an old door that needs the hinges greased, then it’s definitely time to grab a new one.
These springs start creaking when they’re getting old and worn. When it’s worn down, not everything is operating properly, so other parts of the bed withstand additional pressure from years of use, and put extra pressure on the springs. You hear that creaking, and you know that it’s going to end poorly. This is also the precursor to springs popping up through the bed and breaking the fabric of the mattress.
4. It’s Too Soft
Whether you’re a lean mean machine, or you’re just getting older, you’re going to find that the softer your mattress is, the worse night’s sleep you’re going to get. As we age and as we build muscle, we need firmer sleeping surfaces. This doesn’t mean you should sleep on a slab of concrete, but it means you need more support to cushion and control your joints while you’re sleeping.
Having a bad mattress is also going to add some aches and pains to your lower neck, upper back, and lower lumbar. That’s because those muscles and joints are making up for the fact that your spine isn’t aligned, and your body is sinking into the bed like a hammock. They tighten for 6-10 hours while you sleep, and when you wake, boom: you turn your neck, you stretch, and you get injured. If it’s too soft, it’s time to bounce.
5. It’s Stained
You might be thinking, “Well guys, it’s just visual, right?” Not exactly. Stains retain scents, and not just whatever the stain occurred from. We’re not going to get into gorey details here, but it’s super important to make sure nothing’s going to stain your mattress. Those odors are going to get trapped, and eventually, you won’t even notice they’re there. But let me tell you something: if you close the door to your bedroom and keep the windows shut, keep the portable AC off, then you’re going to smell something the minute you open the door.
Nobody wants that. If you’re married, you don’t want your spouse smelling that, if you’re single, you know you don’t want your take-home friend smelling that. There are a million stain removers out there, but they don’t get the job done fully. If the initial spill was enough to stain your mattress, then it’s in the pillow top, it’s in the springs, and it’s in the main fabric, which means there’s always going to be a little bit of that scent hanging around.
6. You’ve Had a Weight Change
If you’ve recently undergone a transformation and lost a lot of weight, it’s time to transform that mattress into a trash bag. Your old self put more stress on the coils and springs with added weight and more wear and tear. Now, you feel like a million bucks, but it’s like you’re sleeping on a ten dollar sleeping bag. Actually, that would be better for you, because it would provide some sort of form or posture. When you lose all that weight and get fit, you’re putting less stress on your body, but your mattress doesn’t oblige to the new changes.
This can seriously mess up your spinal alignment. If you’re waking up with all that stress on your neck and lower lumbar in your back, then it’s time to inspect your mattress. That poor posture and form when you sleep isn’t cradling your sensitive pressure points; it’s just dragging you down in the dumps. It’s time to dump the lumpy mattress, and treat yourself to a more rejuvenating sleep experience.
7. You’re Sneezing Constantly
Mattresses are in direct contact with your body almost as much as your clothing, so you’re shedding a crazy amount of skin cells and hair into the mattress. It all turns to dust, and gets absorbed, or “settles in” to the fabrics. If you’re allergic to dust, (and sometimes even when you’re not), it can get bad enough that you start sneezing every single time you’re in your bedroom. It adds a must to the air, and frankly just makes the entire atmosphere uncomfortable.
Dust gets released when you sit down or lay down to go to bed, and you breathe it in all through the night. Even if you put an air purifier in your room, it’s not going to undo the damage of what you’re breathing in. It only purifies the free-moving air in the room, and you’re breathing in dust that’s only coming from the fabrics, up to your mouth and nose. Sneezing allergies, it’s all the product of an old and dusty mattress. Fortunately, memory foam mattresses don’t hold onto dust like standard spring and coil mattresses do.
8. It’s Sagging on Sight
If you can just look at the mattress and see some sagging or some dipping around the center, then you’ve got to junk it and start from scratch. There’s nothing worse for your back than a sagging mattress. It showcases that the internal components, like the springs and coils, are all wasting away. You lay in the same spot every night, and through years and years of eight-hour blocks of time, it’s worn through.
You’re not far away from back pain and problems if you keep sleeping on it like this. Moving it around or flipping it isn’t going to do anything, because the damage is deep, and it’s going to affect your mattress all the way through. This is like critical condition for your mattress, and needs to be addressed immediately.
9. It Has a Pillow Top
There’s nothing wrong with a mattress pad or a removable pillow top, but most coil mattresses have a sewn-in pillow top. That means you can’t even flip your mattress over to get some more use out of it. You’re stuck with either tilting it around, or just enduring the uncomfortable nature of the pillow top.
They’re also a complete hassle to clean. If you get a removable pad, you can throw it in the washer, hand clean it if you need, and it works out great. You can remove it, buy a new one, do whatever you need: you’re not stuck with it. If it’s sewn on, don’t let it in your bedroom.
10. It’s Not a Memory Foam
Memory foam has been scientifically proven, time and time again, to provide you with a better night’s sleep than spring-loaded, coil mattresses. There are downsides of course, but those usually come down to you using extra blankets or getting a few extra pillow – a simple fix. Memory foam mattresses don’t run into the same issues as coil ones: there’s no breaking through, no awkwardly rough or soft spots, and no discomfort.
It’s smooth sailing all the way through. You can get them custom designed to your personal needs, whether you want a firmer mattress on your side, and the wife wants a softer side to sleep on. They’re tailored to your needs, whereas coil mattresses only have one thing to offer that helps you out: pillow tops, and we’ve already discussed how bad those are for you.
Grab a New Memory Foam Mattress
We’ve covered the best of the best, as well as a full, comprehensive guide on what you need to know before buying, and how to maintain it after the fact. Memory foam is the ultimate solution to easing your back problems, and helping you get a better night’s sleep.
Whether you’re noticing lower lumbar pain in the morning, you’re tossing and turning and breaking up your rem sleep, or you just don’t look forward to sprawling out in your comfortable bed, it’s time to make a change.
