Back Pain? Your Old Mattress Could be the Culprit
If you often suffer from back pain and your body feels much older than it actually is, you may wonder whether it’s all just downhill from here, or if anything can be done.
Fortunately, one of the simplest solutions to your back pain can be as quick as changing out your old mattress for a new one—preferably, a cooling memory foam mattress.
Do you have back pain While You’re Laying down to sleep?
You might even notice the wear in your mattress—but as it gets older (notice how we said “it” and not “you”), its springiness tends to fade away and support becomes hard to come by.
And although that sounds like a metaphor for getting older, and back pain is often correlated with age, aging might not be the culprit this time.
If you wake up worse off than you were when you went to sleep, your mattress might be the issue here. Though you might have grown attached to it, a new cooling mattress—or any cooling memory foam mattress, really—can be the perfect antidote for your back pain.
The Kind of Pain You’re In
One of the main purposes of a mattress is not just to help you get to sleep at night, but also to help alleviate pressure in key points in your body, allowing you to rest comfortably and rejuvenate for the next day.
If your mattress is older, the springs meant to support those pressure points might not be getting their job done. This can cause some serious inflammation to build up not only in your back but throughout your entire linear spine, as well as your hips. And if your core is hurting, chances are that the rest of your body will soon follow.
If the above describes you, it’s most likely time to choose a new mattress to alleviate your back pain.
Let Your Sleeping Position Guide Your Choice of Mattress
The way you feel most comfortable sleeping can play a huge role in what kind of mattress is best for you. Your sleeping position will also affect your posture in the long run, but it likely influences your sleeping preference when it comes to mattress firmness.
Here are the common mattress firmness preferences by sleeping position:
- Side sleepers will most likely benefit from a medium-firmness mattress
- Back sleepers will probably find comfort in a low to medium firmness mattress
- Stomach sleepers need a bit more support, benefitting from a medium to firm mattress
The key point to remember is that you’ll need your spine to be aligned to avoid any discomfort and back pain the next morning.
A Possible Solution: A Cooling Memory Foam Mattress
Even though the National Sleep Foundation suggests that you should be changing out your old mattress every 8-10 years, you wouldn’t be the first person who needs to do that a bit more frequently.
There are so many different factors that can contribute to the wear and tear of a mattress, like your weight, the construction of the frame underneath, the number of people sleeping on it, and of course, how well it’s maintained.
Whatever the reason for the quicker-than-anticipated wear might be, we have a few pieces of information that can help you pick out a proper mattress and get better sleep.
First and foremost, take time to read up on the material and construction of the mattress. This foundation can make a huge difference.
You can choose from:
- A cooling memory foam layer: Designed to cool down your body heat while you’re sleeping, this not only helps you maintain comfort the whole night, it can play a huge role in the distribution and onset of pain.
- A hybrid comfort layer: Just like the name suggests, this is a mix between foam and coils—50/50 to be exact. The type of foam used in these mattresses can be either memory foam, latex foam or polyfoam, depending on the brand.
- A memory foam comfort layer: This mattress goes from low-density foam at the top to high-density at the bottom, which helps the comfort last.
- An innerspring comfort layer: For the top layer here, you’ll often see a mix of cotton and polyfoam. These are known as old-school mattresses, so they can be seen as a traditional style that often cannot last very long.
- A latex foam comfort layer: From the top downward, you’ll find aerated latex foam.
If you’re still unsure about the type of cooling mattresses or the type of foam that’s best suited to help alleviate your back pain—first know that it’s generally different for everybody.
What works for one person’s back pain may not work for another’s—since there are varying factors that can contribute to pain, like sleeping position, age and weight.
The Deeper Foundation: The Frame
Although not generally as important as the mattress, the frame of the bed—or the choice of having no frame at all—can also play a part in back pain.
An adjustable bed frame can also be made out of foam, latex, and hybrids, which help increase pliability and compressibility in its foundation.
Although it isn’t necessarily recommended placing your foam bed directly on the floor, using it with a box spring frame can be even worse—and possibly even damage the material.
If you’re unsure, consult with the mattress manufacturer to find out what the best frame is to match your mattress.
We hope the information above helped you better understand the source of your back pain, and how to fix it. Not many realize it, but there are countless individuals walking around with daily back pain that can be traced back directly to their very own bed.