Back Pain? Your Old Mattress Could Be the Culprit

If you often suffer from back pain and your body feels much older than it is, you may wonder whether it’s all just downhill from here or if anything can be done.

Fortunately, one of the most straightforward solutions to your back pain can be as quick as changing out your old mattress for a new one—preferably, a cooling memory foam + coil mattress.

Experiencing Back Pain in Bed

You might even notice the wear in your mattress—but as it gets older (notice how we said “it” and not “you”), its springiness tends to fade away, and support becomes hard to come by.

And although that sounds like a metaphor for getting older and back pain is often correlated with age, aging might not be the culprit this time.

If you wake up worse off than when you went to sleep, your mattress might be the issue here. Though you might have grown attached to it, a new cooling mattress—or any cooling memory foam mattress, really—can be the perfect antidote for your back pain.

The Kind of Pain You’re In

One of the primary purposes of a mattress is not just to help you get to sleep at night but also to help alleviate pressure in key points in your body, allowing you to rest comfortably and rejuvenate for the next day.

If your mattress is older, the springs meant to support those pressure points might not get their job done. This can cause severe inflammation to build up not only in your back but throughout your entire linear spine and your hips. And if your core is hurting, chances are the rest of your body will soon follow.

If the above describes you, it’s most likely time to choose a new mattress to alleviate your back pain.

Let Your Sleeping Position Guide Your Choice of Mattress

How you feel most comfortable sleeping can play a huge role in what kind of mattress is best for you. Your sleeping position will also affect your posture in the long run, but it likely influences your sleeping preference regarding mattress firmness.

 

Here are common mattress firmness preferences by sleeping position:

• Side sleepers will most likely benefit from a medium-firmness mattress
• Back sleepers will probably find comfort in a low to medium-firmness mattress
• Stomach sleepers need a bit more support, benefitting from a medium to firm mattress

The key point to remember is that you’ll need your spine to be aligned to avoid discomfort and back pain the following day.

A Possible Solution: A Cooling Memory Foam Mattress

Even though the National Sleep Foundation suggests that you should be changing out your old mattress every 8-10 years, you wouldn’t be the first person who needs to do that a bit more frequently.

So many factors can contribute to the wear and tear of a mattress, like your weight, the construction of the frame underneath, the number of people sleeping on it, and of course, how well it’s maintained.

Whatever the reason for the quicker-than-anticipated wear, we have a few pieces of information that can help you pick out a proper mattress and get better sleep.

First and foremost, take time to read up on the material and construction of the mattress. This foundation can make a huge difference.

You can choose from the following:

• A cooling memory foam layer: Designed to cool down your body heat while you’re sleeping, this not only helps you maintain comfort the whole night, it can play a massive role in the distribution and onset of pain.

• A hybrid comfort layer: Just like the name suggests, this is a mix between foam and coils—50/50 to be exact. The type of foam used in these mattresses can be either memory foam, latex foam, or polyfoam, depending on the brand.

• A memory foam comfort layer: This mattress goes from low-density foam at the top to high-density at the bottom, which helps the comfort last.

• An innerspring comfort layer: For the top layer here, you’ll often see a mix of cotton and polyfoam. These old-school mattresses can be seen as a traditional style that usually cannot last very long.

• A latex foam comfort layer: From the top downward, you’ll find aerated latex foam.

If you’re still unsure about the type of cooling mattresses or foam best suited to help alleviate your back pain—first know that it’s generally different for everybody.

What works for one person’s back pain may not work for another’s—since various factors can contribute to pain, like sleeping position, age, and weight.

The Deeper Foundation: The Frame

Although not generally as important as the mattress, the frame of the bed—or the choice of having no frame at all—can also play a part in back pain.

An adjustable bed frame can also be made out of foam, latex, and hybrids, which help increase pliability and compressibility in its foundation.

Although it isn’t necessarily recommended to place your foam bed directly on the floor, using it with a box spring frame can be even worse—and possibly even damage the material.

If you’re unsure, consult the mattress manufacturer to find out the best frame to match your mattress.

We hope the information above helped you better understand the source of your back pain and how to fix it. Not many realize it, but countless individuals are walking around with daily back pain that can be traced back directly to their bed.