The body also needs to be able to move around naturally during the course of the night to help regulate temperature, encourage disc recovery and relieve pressure points. This is a different type of movement from tossing and turning, which uses energy and leaves us feeling more tired when we wake up than when we went to bed. Tossing and turning happens because some parts of our bodies are heavier than others, creating areas of concentrated weight and pressure. This pressure causes loss of circulation leading to numbness and pins and needles and the automatic reaction by the body is to move and turn over to layin a different position.
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| The Solution |
You also need to keep cool to sleep – your body
temperature needs to drop by 1˚ in order to fall and remain asleep. This is why
so many people sleep with a leg outside the duvet! So apart from ensuring that your bedroom is not too hot and that you have the right amount of covers, the
mattress itself should not contribute to a rise in body temperature. Having fibres such as Tencel in the mattress covers will help with temperature
control and moisture management to keep the body cool.
A lot of mattresses around today offer great support for the
body but the more supportive the mattress, the more pressure points are
created. Yet, the more pressure relief offered, the less support one
gets. This is particularly true of some memory foam mattresses which
offer great pressure relief but poor support. Indeed many consumers find
they sweat heavily on a memory foam mattress unless it is covered by a heat
dispersing fabric or has channels or springs for ventilation.
Equally, many highly priced non memory foam mattresses, with
expensive layers of rich upholstery, provide marvelous comfort but are sadly
lacking in both pressure relief and spinal support. At the cheaper end of
the spectrum, beds with less expensive fillings can provide a good degree of
support but compromise on comfort and pressure relief.
In order to develop a mattress range which would provide a
solution to all these key requirements, and working in conjunction with
the American Orthopaedic Advisory Board, over a four year period Sealy
carried out thousands of profiled pressure maps of people of every size,
shape and weight from countries all across the globe. As the
world’s biggest bed manufacturer, Sealy also has the industry’s biggest R&D
facility at its HQ in Carolina in the USA, and is at the cutting edge of the
science of sleep technology. They analysed data from some 50 countries -
height, weight and BMI, side sleeping positions and duration of positions
using the 2 key pressure levels agreed as being key by medical
practitioners. Essentially, below 20mmHG of pressure there is a good
level of pressure relief for the body; above 30mmHG, pressure points occur on
the body that are sufficient to close blood capillaries. Using the
results of this far-reaching research, Sealy developed their new Posturepedic
range of beds which contain 5 to 7 zones of different push back support.
This means:
o
the
spring systems of all new Posturepedic beds will sense the sleeper’s weight and
movement and adjust accordingly throughout the night
o
the
top of the range models will contain a new system of lumbar bars within the
springs to give even greater push back support for the lumbar regions
o
beds
will have Sealy Edge Guard which is a construction around the edge of the
mattress which gives the sleeping surface greater stability which allows you to
sleep right up to the edge of the mattress without it buckling. This
extends the real sleeping surface by about 6 inches compared to other
mattresses
o all beds will have Tencel, a revolutionary fabric, woven
into them; Tencel’s unique, hypo-allergenic properties help control body
temperature by dispersing excess heat and regulating body temperature
o
finally,
and most importantly, the new Posturpedic beds have pressure relief inlay
pads. These contain layers of memory foam and latex which offer different
levels of density across the sleeping surface and are able to adapt and conform
to the weight and shape of the sleeper. This dissipates the body’s weight
across the sleeping surface, minimizing pressure points and keeping the spine
straight: all the basic constituents of a great night’s sleep
Other points to consider when choosing a new bed are the
springs. The pocket spring system is one of the greatest innovations in
the bedding industry and the idea was originally patented in America just over
100 years ago before rolling out more generally in the 1930s. Unlike
traditional coil springs, pocket springs were individually created and then
placed in their own fabric pockets, which allows the springs to move
independently of each other.
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| Spinal alignment with a standard pocket sprung mattress |
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| Spinal alignment with a Sealy pocket sprung mattress |
100 years on from their first appearance, pocket spring systems
now come in a range of tensions which cater to different requirements.
A further variation is the number of active turns in the spring
itself — that is, the number of turns that are absorbing and supporting the
weight of the body. The thinner the wire and more turns, the softer the bed and
the longer the springs will last because their work is spread around.
Surprisingly however, although pocket springs were invented over
there, these days they are not perceived to be the mattress filling of choice
by American consumers who generally prefer an advanced open coil spring
system. Conversely, this side of the Atlantic, for reasons lost in the
mysteries of time, British bed buyers aspire to own a pocket spring mattress as
this is perceived to be a more premium product.
Now, however, continuing their ground-breaking sleep science
development, Sealy have taken spring technology a stage further. Newly launched
in April, the latest addition to the renowned Posturepedic range is a selection
of new pocket spring beds that will offer consumers the best of both worlds: all the support and benefits of a Posturepedic and all the comfort of a
pocket. This new mattress contains multiple zones of newly designed
motion and weight responsive pocket springs for total spinal alignment.
But our bodies are not uniform – we are tall and short, fat and
thin - so why should our mattresses be uniform? Bed comfort is such an
individual thing – one person’s soft and comfy nest is another person’s squashy
nightmare. A nice firm bed for another is someone else’s idea of a night
of torture. So, Sealy customers can choose a special orthopaedic bed which is
extra firm or extra long, or beds with extra layers such as cushion or pillow
top - and then there are water beds, memory foam beds, sofa beds, futons too.
Does your mattress provide you with proper and adequate support?
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