How to choose the right mattress: 5 criteria to rely on

Thick or thin? With spring block or with­out it? With nat­ur­al or arti­fi­cial filler? Before buy­ing, a per­son has so many ques­tions that it’s impos­si­ble to fig­ure it out with­out help. How to choose the right mat­tress, says the author­i­ta­tive site Med­AboutMe.

Criterion 1: with or without springs?

Mat­tress­es with inter­con­nect­ed springs are a thing of the past. Today, man­u­fac­tur­ers use an inde­pen­dent spring block, in which each curl is in its own case. Inde­pen­dent springs eas­i­ly adapt to the con­tours of the body. So, under the shoul­der and pelvis, they will push through a lit­tle more than under the head and legs, but in any case, the spine will remain straight, which is very impor­tant for pre­vent­ing pos­tur­al cur­va­ture and dis­eases of the mus­cu­loskele­tal sys­tem. The more springs, the bet­ter for sup­port­ing the spine.

How­ev­er, today on sale you can find spring­less mat­tress­es, which include a vari­ety of fillers — gas-filled plas­tics, coconut coir, latex. Usu­al­ly one mate­r­i­al is tak­en as the basis, and the oth­er pro­vides the nec­es­sary degree of rigid­i­ty. Mod­ern mate­ri­als with a lay­er of foam with a “mem­o­ry effect” are very pop­u­lar. They also sup­port the spine as cor­rect­ly as pos­si­ble dur­ing sleep.

Criterion 2: One-sided or two-sided?

A dou­ble-sided mat­tress has one side that is soft­er and the oth­er side that is hard­er. Usu­al­ly such a prod­uct is bought for chil­dren “for growth”. While the child is small, turn the mat­tress upside down with a sol­id base, and when it grows up, turn it over with the soft side. On sale you can also find prod­ucts “two sea­sons”. One side of them is adapt­ed for the cold win­ter sea­son. It is soft­er and retains heat well. The sum­mer side is tougher, designed to remove excess heat and pro­vide suf­fi­cient air exchange. It makes sense for peo­ple with over­weight and car­dio­vas­cu­lar ail­ments suf­fer­ing from exces­sive sweat­ing to pur­chase a dou­ble-sided mat­tress, in which there are inde­pen­dent springs. The free space between them does not retain air, so it will not be hot on it.

Criterion 3: Rigidity

Mat­tress­es with increased rigid­i­ty are rec­om­mend­ed for peo­ple with dis­eases of the spine, osteo­chon­dro­sis. The same applies to those whose body weight is much high­er than the norm. For most adults, prod­ucts with a medi­um degree of rigid­i­ty are suit­able. It is bet­ter for the elder­ly and chil­dren to buy a soft­er or mod­er­ate­ly soft mat­tress.

Criterion 4: mattress parameters

If we talk about the thick­ness, then it depends on the weight of the per­son. The larg­er it is, the thick­er the prod­uct should be. An over­weight per­son will feel uncom­fort­able on a thin mat­tress, and a slen­der one will not be able to exert enough pres­sure on a thick­ened base, so it makes no sense to buy a prod­uct that is too high. The stan­dard val­ue varies between 19–25 cm. The width and length should cor­re­spond to the base of the bed. There are stan­dards that apply to sin­gle and dou­ble prod­ucts. Here, as they say, more is pos­si­ble, but less is impos­si­ble, oth­er­wise there will be incon­ve­nience. If desired, you can order a mat­tress in a non-stan­dard size.

Criterion 5: orthopedic or simple?

How to choose an ortho­pe­dic mat­tress? It must be said right away that the term “ortho­pe­dic” refers to med­i­cine, which means it involves treat­ment. But the mat­tress is not capa­ble of treat­ing any­thing, but can only be used for pre­ven­tion pur­pos­es, so it would be more cor­rect to say “with an ortho­pe­dic effect”. Here it is also nec­es­sary to take into account the weight, age of a per­son, the pres­ence of cer­tain dis­eases. For exam­ple, with a her­nia of the spine, it is bet­ter to choose a mat­tress with an inde­pen­dent spring block and nat­ur­al latex, but in any case, it is rec­om­mend­ed to first con­sult with a spe­cial­ist.