How to Choose an Orthopedic Massage for Better Sleep

A com­fort­able mat­tress is an undoubt­ed invest­ment in your health, because sound sleep is the key to excel­lent well-being and good rest. A poor-qual­i­ty mat­tress is not just an uncom­fort­able sleep, but also a pos­si­ble cause of insom­nia, snor­ing and oth­er more seri­ous prob­lems, for exam­ple, with the mus­cu­loskele­tal sys­tem. It has been proven that poor sleep can lead to excess weight, because from a lack of rest, a per­son begins to invol­un­tar­i­ly con­sume more foods con­tain­ing cho­les­terol and fats. Inad­e­quate sleep can also aggra­vate the course of dia­betes and depres­sion. What do you need in order to get enough sleep and con­stant­ly feel full of strength and ener­gy? What role do ortho­pe­dic mat­tress­es play and how to choose them cor­rect­ly, Med­AboutMe will tell you.

What is an orthopedic mattress and its role for sleep?

An adult’s sleep should ide­al­ly last 7.5–8 hours. But the qual­i­ty of a night’s rest depends not only on its dura­tion. It is very impor­tant to sleep in a com­fort­able bed. And spe­cial atten­tion must be paid to the mat­tress. Today the most pop­u­lar are ortho­pe­dic mat­tress­es. More­over, almost all of their more or less mod­ern mod­els bear this name. It is also worth not­ing that the word “ortho­pe­dic” is a med­ical term and is used to char­ac­ter­ize prod­ucts used in the treat­ment of dis­eases of the mus­cu­loskele­tal sys­tem. But mat­tress­es can­not heal, they are used exclu­sive­ly for pre­ven­tive pur­pos­es. There­fore, it is more appro­pri­ate to say not “ortho­pe­dic mat­tress”, but “mat­tress with an ortho­pe­dic effect”.

The right mat­tress can pro­vide you with a good night’s sleep. Mat­tress with ortho­pe­dic effect pro­vides:

• relax­ation of all mus­cles dur­ing sleep and a sig­nif­i­cant reduc­tion in the load on the spine;
• rep­e­ti­tion of all con­tours of the body and its anatom­i­cal­ly cor­rect posi­tion, regard­less of the adopt­ed pos­ture;
• pre­ven­tion of pain in the neck, back and low­er back.

Also, a good ortho­pe­dic mat­tress has an addi­tion­al antibac­te­r­i­al impreg­na­tion that pro­tects against fun­gus and bac­te­ria, and also pro­vides excel­lent air ven­ti­la­tion inside it.

What are orthopedic mattresses?

Among the wide vari­ety of mod­els of mod­ern ortho­pe­dic mat­tress­es, it is not easy to choose the most suit­able option for your­self. By design, they dis­tin­guish:

• Spring­less mat­tress­es char­ac­ter­ized by elas­tic­i­ty and resis­tance to defor­ma­tion due to spe­cial fillers, such as latex, coconut fiber or polyurethane foam. These mat­tress­es can have vary­ing degrees of firm­ness, which is why they are espe­cial­ly pop­u­lar among the pop­u­la­tion.
• Spring mat­tress­es, which are based on a depen­dent or inde­pen­dent spring block. The first option is a sin­gle can­vas, con­sist­ing of many small springs. Recent­ly, such mat­tress­es are not clas­si­fied as ortho­pe­dic, but, due to the low­est price, they are still in con­sid­er­able demand. Prod­ucts with an inde­pen­dent spring block can be hard, medi­um hard and soft. They can have a vari­able design that pro­vides uni­form sup­port for dif­fer­ent parts of the body. The com­fort of a mat­tress depends on the num­ber (from 250 to 1000) of springs in a block per square meter and their size.

Speak­ing of mat­tress­es with inde­pen­dent box springs, it is worth not­ing that they are the best choice. Their qual­i­ty depends not only on the num­ber of springs, but also on their size and shape. The more springs in the design, the more elas­tic it is. The num­ber of turns in the spring is also impor­tant — there must be at least six of them. More prac­ti­cal and durable in oper­a­tion will be springs, shaped like an hour­glass. The best option is a mat­tress with zon­al blocks, rep­re­sent­ed by sep­a­rate groups of spi­rals of var­i­ous diam­e­ters and designed to sup­port the pro­trud­ing and heav­i­est parts of the body.

Anoth­er impor­tant indi­ca­tor of the qual­i­ty of the mat­tress is the type of its filler. Most often they are:

• Coconut fiber, char­ac­ter­ized by envi­ron­men­tal safe­ty and a high degree of rigid­i­ty. When choos­ing a mat­tress with such a filler, it is impor­tant to con­sid­er that glue can be used to impreg­nate it, which often leads to the devel­op­ment of an aller­gic reac­tion. It is also worth not­ing that coconut lycra is not a very durable mate­r­i­al.
• Polyurethane foam is a hypoal­ler­genic and eco­nom­i­cal mate­r­i­al often used in pro­duc­tion. It has a high degree of rigid­i­ty, but it does not pass air well and has a rather short ser­vice life.
• Nat­ur­al latex is a mate­r­i­al with excel­lent ortho­pe­dic prop­er­ties and a long ser­vice life. It absorbs mois­ture well, but can accu­mu­late it.
• Arti­fi­cial latex is a tougher mate­r­i­al than its nat­ur­al coun­ter­part. It is easy to main­tain and has excel­lent per­for­mance prop­er­ties.
• Horse hair is a vari­ant of the filler for ortho­pe­dic mat­tress­es, char­ac­ter­ized by excel­lent air per­me­abil­i­ty, high strength and elas­tic­i­ty. Mat­tress­es with this filler have an aver­age degree of rigid­i­ty. But such a nat­ur­al mate­r­i­al can cause aller­gies.
• Hollofiber is a mate­r­i­al of medi­um and high degree of rigid­i­ty, char­ac­ter­ized by hypoal­ler­genic­i­ty and high ser­vice life.

Also, mat­tress­es are becom­ing more and more pop­u­lar today, in which high­ly elas­tic foam is used as a filler. Such a filler is called “mem­o­ry”, that is, it is able to “remem­ber” the curves of the body of a per­son sleep­ing on it. But keep in mind, if you are used to chang­ing the posi­tion of your body at night, such a mat­tress may not be the best choice for you.

An equal­ly impor­tant indi­ca­tor of the qual­i­ty of an ortho­pe­dic mat­tress is the mate­r­i­al of its coat­ing. Today, the most pop­u­lar are mat­tress cov­ers made of knit­ted fab­ric and jacquard. High-qual­i­ty knitwear is pleas­ant to the touch, has excel­lent breatha­bil­i­ty and absorbs mois­ture well.

Individual choice of mattress

When choos­ing an ortho­pe­dic mat­tress, it is worth con­sid­er­ing not only per­son­al pref­er­ences, but also the weight, height and age of the user:

• for babies, a hard mat­tress with a filler, for exam­ple, made of coconut fiber, is an excel­lent option;
• from about the age of three, the child’s sleep­ing place is best enno­bled with a soft­er, ide­al­ly spring­less prod­uct;
• from ear­ly ado­les­cence to 25 years, experts rec­om­mend using hard and medi­um-hard mat­tress­es, because dur­ing this peri­od the body grows and devel­ops most active­ly;
• as the body ages, it is best to choose a soft or medi­um firm mat­tress.

For thin peo­ple, soft mat­tress­es are best, and for those who are over­weight, prod­ucts with a medi­um or high degree of rigid­i­ty will be more com­fort­able. For many users, com­bined mat­tress options are most com­fort­able, in which one part is soft­er than the oth­er.

Let’s not forget about health!

The main rule for choos­ing an ortho­pe­dic mat­tress is to do no harm. After all, not every­one can fit cer­tain types of struc­tures. For exam­ple:

• for peo­ple suf­fer­ing from sci­at­i­ca, a mat­tress with an inde­pen­dent spring block of medi­um hard­ness is more prefer­able;
• a soft ortho­pe­dic mat­tress, for exam­ple, with an inde­pen­dent spring block and nat­ur­al latex as a filler, is suit­able for spinal her­nia;
• in case of sco­l­io­sis, it is nec­es­sary to sup­port some parts of the body and min­i­mize the load on oth­ers, so the mem­o­ry mat­tress is one of the best solu­tions in this case;
• prod­ucts with a high degree of rigid­i­ty are suit­able for peo­ple suf­fer­ing from pain in the neck, with painful man­i­fes­ta­tions in the tho­racic region, medi­um-hard mat­tress­es are good, and in the lum­bar — soft ones.

If you have any health prob­lems, in par­tic­u­lar, the mus­cu­loskele­tal sys­tem, you must always con­sult a doc­tor before buy­ing an ortho­pe­dic mat­tress. When buy­ing such a mat­tress for pre­ven­tive pur­pos­es, it is best to opt for prod­ucts of medi­um and high hard­ness with a filler in the form of arti­fi­cial or nat­ur­al latex, a com­bi­na­tion of coconut fiber and latex.