We all have our habits when it comes to sleeping, but the position we sleep in will always fall in one of three categories: back, side or stomach. And while some people switch positions more often than others, there’s usually one predominant position during the night (which may be different than the position you prefer to fall asleep in!). It’s this predominant position that should guide you when you’re shopping for a new mattress. So, below are a few things to think about for all types of sleeper. It goes without saying that people who sleep on their backs are more susceptible to pain in the spine and the back in general. This is because of the amount of strain your spine undergoes when you lie down. It might seem like that old spring mattress you’ve had for many years feels great when you first lay your head to rest, but as the night wears on the pressure on your spine increases. The first step towards solving this problem is understanding that, as a back sleeper, you will need more support than someone who say, sleeps on their side.
For this reason, if you’re on the market for a new mattress (and of course I recommend memory foam), it’s wise to look for a model that’s medium firm or slightly more plush than most. However, going too plush can also pose it’s problems because you need more support for your spine than people who sleep in a different position do. It may all start to sound very confusing and I understand how you feel. After all, it wasn’t that long ago I was in the same situation. You do have to think about how heavy you are, what you do and don’t find comfortable, and the fact you may need to consider motion transfer if you share your bed with someone else. Choosing a new mattress can be a journey in itself, but if you understand that, as a back sleeper, it’s your spine that needs a little extra help, this should narrow down the choice (if only a little). If you sleep on your side, you may be happy to know this is one of the healthiest positions. Sleeping in this position, for one thing, will help reduce acid reflux.
This is why your doctor might tell you sleeping on your side is better for you if you’re pregnant. It also means the blood can circulate better and it reduces the amount of pressure on your lungs. If you have a partner that snores, the chances are this is at its worst when they sleep on their back. For the most part a snoring partner can be pretty much silenced by helping them to turn on their side. However, it’s not all “plain sailing” if you sleep on your side. If you have a traditional spring mattress for instance, this won’t help in terms of pressure points across your body. This is why a memory foam mattress can do wonders for your posture even if you do sleep on your side. The main problem side sleepers will come across are aches and pains in the shoulders and hips. If you make sure your mattress will adequately cradle these parts of your body you won’t wake up feeling like you’ve aged 10 years overnight. Of course, the thickness, type of memory foam and density you choose is entirely up to you.
In fact, I would say this is a very personal decision. Just bear in mind that if you generally sleep on your side, it’s worth looking into medium to soft memory foam mattresses specifically designed to support hips, shoulders and to a certain degree the spine, as these are the areas where the most pressure is experienced when you sleep. This might seem like the most comfortable position for you, but this is actually one of the unhealthiest ways to drop off overnight. The main reason for this is the majority of our weight falls on the torso area, and when you sleep on your stomach you’re actually putting an awful lot of pressure on your spine because of this. But since the last thing you will probably want to hear is that you should change your sleeping position, it’s important you know what can be done to help alleviate the strain on your spine. The first thing to consider is how well your current mattress is supporting you. If you find you suffer from more aches and pains in your back when you wake up in the morning, your mattress could be the culprit.
Coil spring mattresses are probably the last thing you should sleep on because they’re not designed to support the pressure points across the body (let alone help align your spine). So if your mattress is a number of years old, then for the sake of your physical health it might be time to change. The best type of mattress for someone who sleeps on their stomach is not too firm, yet not too soft. If you go too soft, the spine will arch as you sleep and this can be very painful the next morning. If you have a mattress that’s too firm this won’t let your spine fall into its natural curve and will also cause you problems. In general though, stomach sleepers should look for a mattress that’s more firm than plush. It’s not easy because everyone has their own personal preference when choosing a mattress that suits them best, but honestly, as someone who sleeps on their stomach, you really have to make sure you get the right support. I do have more information on my website that might help.
If you are thinking about a memory foam mattress, my section on mattress density is a good source of information when deciding which type will suit you best. Your pillow is something else worth thinking about since this will affect the overall position you eventually fall asleep in. If you would like more information on this, feel free to take a look at my informational page on pillows. There is also a really handy video to help make things clearer.Odd, really - I'm in a shop called Dreams, yet I'm having what can only be described as a nightmare. I'm trying to buy a new bed. So far, I've lain down on half a dozen and have already forgotten whether I preferred the Silentnight Harmony, the Dunlopillo Dickens, or the Hypnos Beethoven. Which is bad news, really, since there are at least another 50 to go and already my back is starting to play up. Bed behaviour: Brits get only 6.6hours of sleep per night, rather than the recommended eight Yes, like 49 per cent of people in this country, I get some form of lower lumbar aggravation at least once a year and, like 99.9 per cent of people, I don't have a clue what bed would suit me best.
Nor do I know how to find out. Amazing, given that we spend one-third of our lives asleep. Or not asleep, in my case. Recently, I've noticed my joints echoing the creaking sounds the bed makes each time I turn over. Plus more of my dreams seem to feature me clinging on to the edge of a cliff, upon which I wake up and find I'm trying to stop myself falling into the mattress valley that has opened up between me and my wife. According to the Sleep Council - the promotional wing of the National Bed Federation - we Brits get only 6.6hours of sleep per night, rather than the recommended eight. Dr Chris Idzikowski, of the Edinburgh Sleep Centre, says that if we all treated ourselves to a new bed, we would get an extra 42 minutes' shut-eye per night. Not surprisingly, the bed industry is big on the benefits of swapping your old mattress for a new, preferably more expensive one. The Furniture Industry Research Association claims a bed can lose 70 per cent of its strength over a ten-year period, while the Sleep Council warns that, like a marriage, a bed will start deteriorating after seven years.
As a result, practically every mattress on the market tries to talk us into bed with quasi-medical promises. Beds are given names like Ortho and Posturepedic, while the hardest mattresses are all classified as 'orthopaedic'. Much is made in the marketing blurb about the scientific research that has gone into the making of the mattresses. Tempur use an absorbent foam developed by Nasa scientists in order to minimise G-forces on astronauts during take-off. Not everyone, however, is convinced. 'I have often wondered what the word orthopaedic means in the context of buying a bed,' says Steve Krikler, a senior consultant orthopaedic surgeon based in Coventry. 'Most of the terminology is impressive-sounding jargon to persuade you to part with your hardearned cash, without any real evidence. A bad mattress can exacerbate back pain, but can it actually give you a bad back? I'm not sure there's any scientific evidence to back that up.' What gives you a bad back is not lying in bed - it's sudden twisting and lifting.
'It is a bit crazy', agrees the woman from the BackCare helpline. 'There used to be a school of thought that if you had a bad back, you needed a hard bed. The fact is, it depends on a person's weight, height and age.' And what kind do I need? She can't tell me. 'We only offer a listening ear,' she replies, 'not medical advice.' surprising, as there doesn't seem to be a doctor in the world who is qualified in the field of optimum sleep angles or the best bed for your Just as no one had heard of an IT consultant 30 years ago, so the post of clinical snoozician or horizontalist has yet to be invented. There has been some medical examination of the bed-makers'In a study in the journal Spine, back-pain patients were asked to compare comfort levels of a hard mattress, a body-conforming foam mattress and a waterbed.'The waterbed and foam mattress did influence back symptoms, function and sleep more positively, as opposed to the hardBut the differences were small,' said the researchers.
Which isn't much for the average mattress-purchaser to go on. It seems the closest you can get to expert advice is a Sleep Council leaflet, entitled The Bed Buyers' Guide, which tries to de-mystify the inner workings of a mattress. It explains the different type of spring configurations. are open springs, arranged in rows and connected by a thick, spiral Then there are pocket springs, housed in individual fabric pockets, allowing them to work independently of each other. when you turn over, the spring-ripple effect stays on your side and doesn't spread to your partner. And that's not all. There are different types of foam mattress: latex (which springs back when you get up) and visco-elastic, or 'memory foam', which doesn't, but leaves an imprint of your body. But you have to be careful, warns BackCare, not to get stuck in your own moulded hollow. 'Lying in one position can create stiffness. A mattress should be supportive enough to take the weight of your body without sagging, but firm enough for you to turn with ease.'
Bed Buyers' Guide has a picture of the perfect back shape when you're lying on your side. Think of the spine as a mouth and it should be neither tight-lipped, nor bendy and smiley, but more of a gentle, faraway grin. Too rigid a back will mean your body isn't relaxed. Too slouchy and you'll be sleeping with a bent spine. The trouble is, when you're lying on a bed in a retail outlet, you can't see the shape of your back. And you don't half feel a fool asking the sales assistant: 'Is my spine smiley or sad?' The solution is to go bed-buying with someone else, preferably the person you're going to be sharing it with. Yet, instead of settling for a one-mattress-fits-both scenario, couples can have a his-and-hers arrangement, whereby you opt for two different-strength single mattresses that fit inside a zip-up double overblanket. More fool me, then, for coming to the bed shop on my own. It's just that I can't shake off memories of the time my wife and I went to John Lewis and lay there, while other shoppers stood at the foot of our bed, like they were visiting the tomb of a medieval king and queen.
It seems few of us feel relaxed lying down in a department store. Jessica Alexander of the Sleep Council says: 'Eighty per cent of people spend less than two minutes trying the bed in which they're going to spend 3,000 hours every year. 'We recommend you spend at least ten minutes, ideally 30. If you're embarrassed, listen to music with your eyes closed. Some couples even wear their pyjamas!' Instead, I ask the sales assistant if it's all right to take my shoes off, and try the mattresses at my own pace and in my own trousers. Even so, with 50-plus beds to get through, I put in barely a minute on each. Afterwards, I write down words such as 'squidgy' and discover that mattress 'ratings' (one for rock-hard, five for wobbly) are unreliable. Similarly, the number of springs in the mattress doesn't seem to have a huge bearing on how comfortable it is by any stretch of the imagination. The other thing I discover is that if my chosen mattress and I don't get on, a quickie divorce can be arranged.