What you need to know before buying a mattress
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Firmness level
What is Mattress Firmness?
The firmness of a mattress is the initial feel you get when you lie down on a mattress. It is important to not mistake firmness with support. When you lie on a mattress and it is stiff and you immediately bounce back, this would be considered a firm mattress.
Another firmness of mattress is a plush or soft feel, which would have more of a sinking cloud like comfort that would contour to your body when you lie on it.
There is also a medium firmness level which has a balanced mixture of push back and soft contouring comfort.
What Firmness Do You Need?
The level of firmness a sleeper needs comes down to two factors:
Weight
and
Sleeping position.
Weight
Weight plays a a big factor in choosing a mattress firmness. If the person using the mattress is heavy they may find a mattress that has a soft or plush firmness not right for them as the cushioned feel may create too much sinkage, giving the sleeper too much of a hugging feel, this can also be fine if the person prefers that feeling. It doesn't matter too much if the mattresses is hugging or not it is more important that the top layers of the mattress is well supported by the springs underneath. Heavier people generally need a thicker mattress that have greater compression support (heavier referring to people over 90kg). Generally heavier people are most suited to a medium to firm mattress with good support and a lighter person can lean more towards a more plush or softer mattress as they will tend to feel more of the top layers of the mattress.
Sleeping Position
Sleeping position is also very important when deciding on what firmness level your mattress needs to be.
There are three sleeping positions; side, stomach and back each with their own firmness level needs.
Side Sleepers - people who sleep on their side create a number of pressure points on their mattress. The most suited mattress feel for a side sleeper is a soft or medium mattress that is able to contour to the curves of their body.
Stomach Sleepers - sleeping on your stomach case cause lower back issues. The most suited mattress feel to counter this is medium or slightly firm mattresses. This helps spine alignment when sleeping on your stomach.
Back Sleepers - back sleepers often suffer from a bad back or sore neck from sleeping on a bad mattress due to the natural curve of the spine. It is more important to choose a mattress with good support rather than firmness. The level of firmness can help though. For back sleepers a medium-firm mattress or medium-soft would be suited as the mattress needs to contour to your spinal shape and support it, taking away the pressure from certain points.
Mattress Features
Shopping for a mattress can be very confusing at times and you may not understand what all the features are and what they do. Here will tell you what all these features are so you can understand how each mattress differentiates itself from the next.
Zones
Many newer mattresses feature different zones, meaning different sections of the mattress have different levels of support in order to help improve spinal alignment. The zones are needed as different parts of your body create different amounts pressure whilst lying on a mattress.
In most people, the hip region is the heaviest part of the body, therefore it needs to be supported the most. This means the hip area in a zoned mattress is made more firm to offer adequate support. The shoulder area of a zoned mattress is made softer or the springs have more give as a persons shoulder protrude more the most thus relieving pressure on the shoulder area and corrects spinal alignment.
The head and feet do not need as much support therefore a normal amount of support for those areas are fine.
3 Zoned pocket spring system
Edge Support
Have you ever sat or lay down on the edge of a bed and you have felt that you are about to roll off? That is because the mattress would have had poor edge support.
Edge support in Mattress-Oz mattresses are built from a firm foam box that surrounds a bed of springs. This formation prevents edge collapses and roll offs in the middle of the night.
Minimal Partner Disturbance
This term refers to a mattress that enables one sleeper to not be affected by their partners movement throughout the night. This is achieved in our mattresses through a combination of pillow-top shock absorbing materials, quality edge support, unlinked zoned pocket spring systems, where they eliminate movement throughout the entire bed as the springs aren’t linked.
