Sleeping is an essential part of any living thing, whether you’re a night owl, an early bird, or a slight amnesiac. As human beings, we spend almost a 1/3 of our lives sleeping and resting, and a lot of it will be on a mattress. So it’s important to make sure you’re sleeping on the right mattresses. We explain further how your mattress can be affecting your sleep and, ultimately your health.
You snooze, you lose
We spend an average of around 20,800 hours on our mattress during its recommended lifespan of 8 years, and so getting a good night’s sleep is essential. However, experts believe we spend just under 1% hitting the snooze button so we can ‘get extra’ sleep. This, in fact, makes us more tired as hitting the snooze button initiates a second sleep cycle, and so disturbing the second cycle will make us more groggy than usual.
Mattresses and mites
More disturbingly, your mattress will have almost 5 kilograms or 12 pounds of dead skin cells! If you let other creatures onto your bed, like your kids or pets, they’ll be adding to the dead skin cell count! Dust mites feed off your dead skin cells and there are between 10,000- 10 million of them in your mattress. Over time, these mites may cause allergic reactions like asthmatic attacks.
Is your mattress in shape?
Mattresses take a lot of strain and weight over the course of 8 years. So it’s natural that, over a period of years, your mattress will take on an uneven shape due to the person sleeping in a certain way. It might have a depression due to the person sleeping on their side or back. Check here!
This unevenness can cause permanent body impressions on your body and cause you pains and discomforts. A new mattress offered 63% improvement for sleepers, and by the time a mattress reaches 6 years; it can offer significantly less support.
The best sleep aid is a good mattress can also help support your back and spine- your spine helps support your body and keep it upright all day. An out-of-shape mattress can cause back pains, muscle fatigue, and discomfort.
Side effects of a bad mattress
Some of the side effects of a bad mattress include:
- Drowsiness
- Back pain
- Obesity: those who wake during the night because of an uncomfortable mattress are more likely to overeat to compensate
- Lung and throat irritation: the large number of dust mites are the main cause for this
- Shortened sleep and increased heart conditions
- Premature aging
How to Sleep Better
Most mattress reviews are fairly subjective- at the end of the day, it’s a personal preference when it comes to what is comfortable. What a person with a slight build will find hard, a person with a larger build may find soft. At the end of the day, it’s worth testing out mattresses to see what you feel is good. Spend 20 minutes ‘test-sleeping’ a mattress to see if you can comfortably sleep on it.
Conclusion:
Mattress can be a breeding ground for dust mites and other organisms. If you don’t replace it every 8 years, chances are your health could be at risk. The best sleep aid is a new mattress that gives you good back support and helps you sleep better.