According to a study conducted by Harvard University, lack of quality sleep sometimes results in serious health problems, including high blood pressure and a weakened immune system. For this reason, many beds and mattresses on the market promise to make it easier to get a good night's sleep. Sleep number beds are among the available products. These beds adjust based on user settings until they reach the desired comfort level. Before purchasing this type of bed, it helps to understand exactly how these beds work. Understanding the design is the key to understanding how a sleep number bed works. A sleep number bed is a mattress designed with two crucial components: an inflatable air mattress and a memory foam top. Air mattresses have existed for many years and are a modern staple of camping trips. Anyone who has used an air mattress knows that a fully inflated mattress is quite firm and solid for sleeping. If the air mattress does not inflate fully, it provides a much softer and yielding surface.
This is the basic principle behind a sleep number bed. Unlike a camping air mattress, a sleep number bed uses an adjustable air pump. If the user wishes to have a firmer bed, the pump fills the mattress with more air until it reaches the specified setting. If the user desires a softer bed, the pump removes air from the mattress. Memory foam is a remarkable product first developed by NASA. Memory foam works by responding to heat by changing density. As warmer objects, such as sleeping bodies, touch the foam, the foam becomes softer at the warmest points. When memory foam becomes part of a mattress, it responds to body temperature by conforming to body shape. The primary benefit of sleeping on memory foam is that it distributes weight evenly. When no one is on the foam, it returns to its original shape. When multiple sleepers use a single sleep number bed, each sleeper has his or her own control device. Each person can adjust the firmness on one side of the bed to accommodate preferred specifications.
This is possible because each side of the bed contains its own air mattress with foam borders between each of the air mattresses. Anyone who sleeps in the middle of the bed only receives support from foam, and not from an air mattress. More expensive sleep number beds add a third component to the standard design. Along with the air mattress and the memory foam layer, an additional pillow top layer, often filled with down, rests on top. The purpose of this layer is to provide additional softness. Although this does not diminish the nature of the sleep number bed, it is often harder for those who enjoy firmer mattresses to feel the air mattresses beneath them. Several manufacturers exist for sleep number beds, and the sleep numbers may not always correspond to each other. In other words, what may be an ideal sleep number or firmness for one person on one mattress is not always the same ideal sleep number on a different mattress. Fortunately, a common method exists for determining the ideal sleep number on all types of sleep number beds.
Lay in preferred sleep position Adjust the mattress from firmest setting to softest setting Adjust the mattress up from the softest setting until the neck, shoulders, hips, and back feel entirely supported Sleep on the setting for at least 3 nights before adjusting as needed It often takes several days of quality rest to feel the benefits of better sleep. If the sleep number bed does not provide satisfying sleep at any setting, other underlying issues like allergies or breathing problems are often the problem. All components of a sleep number system, including the mattress, box spring, and bed frame, are available for purchase on eBay. To find a sleep number bed, simply use the search bar found on every eBay page. As an example, a search for "sleep number queen" narrows the list of possible results to only include queen size mattresses, or you can choose generic search terms to widen the range of possibilities. It is always possible to modify or amend any search term for an easier search.
Sleep number beds offer the ability to adjust the firmness of the beds so users are able to achieve maximum body support and comfort. The goal is to make it possible for sleepers, especially couples, to find a way to sleep better and enjoy less pain and better health as a result. Whether or not it is possible to achieve this goal with a mattress depends on the sleepers and their individual sleep problems, but sleep number beds definitely solve the problem for many people.LAS VEGAS—CES 2017 is well underway and what that means for everyone involved is aching backs, sore feet, and absurdly high step counts on our fitness trackers. And if that weren't bad enough, crowded Vegas hotels are cleverly designed so that the only free seats are at the slot machines. If only the CES floor had a nice, soft place to rest and catch your breath. Someplace where you could cast off your heavy backpack and camera and maybe catch a few sorely needed Zs. Thankfully this year, eager techies have the Sleep Number 360—a smart bed that can warm your feet, adjust in real time to your biometrics, light up when you leave the bed, and automatically sense when you're snoring.
It also records your sleep quality via an app and can help you smarten up your bedtime routine. It's strategic genius that Sleep Number's booth is nearly front and center at the Tech West Sands Expo Hall, and I all but raced for my demo to finally see whether the 360 could deliver. But as eager as I was to sneak in a job-sanctioned lie-down, I did have some reservations. First, the Sleep Number 360 is a memory foam mattress—think back to those late-night Tempurpedic commercials or the clever Casper ads you see on the New York City subway. Either you love memory foam, or you don't. I definitely don't, mainly because they tend to be too soft (for me) and they can often get hot during the night as they retain more heat. So I was pleasantly surprised at how comfortable the 360 was right off the bat. When I asked, Sleep Number attributed its comfort to a proprietary memory foam. The adjustability feature was a bit surprising at first. You really do notice how it slowly depresses under your curves when you lie on your side.
And it really is more comfortable, with just the right amount of sink. How the mattress changes when you turn back onto your back is less noticeable. But most importantly, I was curious to see how the 360 would handle snorers. There's a lot of tech at this year's CES devoted to sleeping better, and a good portion of them revolve around how to get your partner to snore less. When chatting about the Sleep Number with a few other PCMag analysts, some brought up concerns that it might move too quickly and accidentally wake them up—which would stop snoring, just not in a way that promoted good sleep. The good news is that the 360 is actually quite stealth when it comes to lifting your head. It moves slowly and quietly, and while I did notice the movement, I'd actually have to be asleep to know whether it's truly disruptive. Along that vein, Sleep Number says to get the full experience, you have to use the bed for at least a month so that it really learns and adjusts to your personal sleeping patterns.