SLEEP POSTURE AND SPINAL ALIGNMENT Why we believe The DUX Bed is the best mattress for back pain. Good quality sleep forms the backbone of good spinal health. That’s good news — after all, acquiring the best mattress for back pain is well within your control. When you consider the constant stress your spine endures every day you owe it to yourself to protect it at night. We feel The DUX Bed is the best bed for back pain, not only because it aligns your spine through dynamic contouring support, but also because it can be customized to the exact requirements of your body. With this, your back muscles not only get the relief they need, but a consistent opportunity to heal. TRANSCEND FIRM OR SOFT When selecting the best mattress for back pain, most people equate firmness with support, and softness with comfort. However, the best method for evaluating a mattress is to examine how it supports the spine. Maximum comfort and health can only be achieved if your muscles can completely relax and your spine is supported in proper alignment.
FIRM Studies show that if a mattress is too firm it forces your body to conform to it. DUX is just the opposite – it conforms to you. SOFT When a mattress is too soft, your body sinks into a hammock position, causing your spine to curve unnaturally. THE DUX BED DUX contours to your body, supporting the entire length of your spine so it can rest in the most natural, healthiest position possible. WE'VE GOT YOUR BACK Your muscles work to protect your spine all day - they deserve a break at night. According to medical research, over 80% of us will experience back pain at some point in our lives. The chairs we sit in, the shoes we wear, the sports we play, the stress in our lives — all contribute to back pain. And back muscles don’t necessarily go to sleep when you do — they can stay tense if your mattress doesn’t provide proper, continuous support. PASCAL: OUR CUSTOMIZABLE CASSETTE SYSTEM The best mattress is the one that fits the exact needs of your body.
Our Pascal Cassette System allows every DUX bed to be customized to the individual needs of you and your partner. Simply arrange the components in accordance with your size and weight. And if your body changes due to injury, pregnancy or aging, just reconfigure the cassettes to match your new needs. LEARN MORE ABOUT PASCAL >> Should you require a little extra lumbar support — either permanently or due to a temporary condition like a sports injury or pregnancy — the DUX 818 model includes a removable hand crank so you can increase the bed’s lumbar support to your exact need. THE DUX 818 SPECS >> Why is sleeping on your side the best position? "Side sleeping is the best position and here's why. It's the only position that allows the spine to straighten out. There's also very little pressure on the spine when you lay on your side. If you sleep in a fetal position, it takes even more pressure off your lower back." DEEP SLEEP - THE ULTIMATE GOAL Researchers at The Karolinska Institute, the prestigious medical university that awards the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine, performed a study investigating the effect different types of mattresses had on the body and sleep quality.
Their results showed that those who slept on a DUX bed not only fall asleep faster, but remained in deep sleep longer – a good thing since deep sleep has been proven to be the only sleep stage where muscles can heal and repair themselves. * READ MORE >> In an independent sleep study conducted by the Karolinska Institute of Sweden, the sleep patterns of individuals using a variety of innerspring mattresses were measured using an EEG to record the electrical activity in the cerebral cortex of the brain. The study demonstrated that DUX users not only reached the Deep Sleep stage of sleep faster, but remained there longer. This is especially beneficial since it is during Deep Sleep that the body and immune system recovers and repairs itself. * BRL, 1985, 1989 (Bed Research Laboratory, Associate Professor Evert Knutsson, Associate Professor Sven Engdahl)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. 'If you've got a bad back, it's worth finding a retailer who will take a mattress back,' says Jessica. After two-and-a-half hours of being supine, I have narrowed the choice down to four mattresses, costing between £399 and £919 (the most expensive is £2,899).