Is your mattress causing you back pain?
Getting a good night’s sleep is dependent on a variety of factors, a major one being your mattress. Do you wake up with lower back pain and feel like you have to stretch to rid the pain? If so, your mattress may not meet your needs.
Having a mattress with poor support can cause severe back pain, as well as growing pain that already exists. Lack of mattress support can result in muscle strain, spine misalignment and a poor sleeping posture, all of which contribute to back pain. The more comfort you receive from a good mattress lessens the likelihood of suffering from back pain, as it allows the structures of the spine to rest easier at night. If your mattress does not match your needs, it is likely that you will endure a poor night’s sleep, so it is vital that you choose the right mattress for you.
With the vast variety of mattresses on the market, choosing the right mattress can prove to be difficult, however, outlined below are some tips on choosing the best mattress for managing your back pain:
- Person Preference: Ensuring that your choice of mattress matches up to your needs is vital. A mattress that is comfortable to one person, may not be for another. It is important to identity which mattress you think has the most comfort.
- Knowing the Mattress: Understanding the components of a mattress can make choosing and buying a much easier process. The coils or the springs are what provide the support in a mattress, and the thickness of the padding reflects the level of comfort.
- Choosing a mattress with the most support: If your back demands a high level of support, looking at mattresses that support the natural curves of the spine would prove to be beneficial. This may improve your night’s sleep dramatically.
- Don’t keep old mattresses: It is recommended that you replace a mattress approximately every 8 years. As the mattress ages, the materials start to degrade, especially the coils and or the springs resulting in less support and less comfort.
- Bigger is not necessarily better: Some manufactures create thicker mattresses to fool you into thinking that is comfier, this is not necessary the case.
Having the correct knowledge on how to choose the best mattress to suit your needs will reduce the possibility of having back pains. We hope these guidelines will help you purchase the correct mattress and ease the burden of back pain as a result of sleeping.
Michael graduated with a Bachelor of Physiotherapy from Melbourne University. Since then, he has had over 21 years of experience as a physiotherapist and is also a qualified D.M.A. Clinical Pilates Practitioner.