Support and Pressure Relief - The Best Mattress For Your Back

Support

It is very important that your mattress provides you with the support that your body needs. This is the first of the two core elements of a great mattress. If it doesn’t, you may end up having muscle pains across your body. Many believe that a mattress should be firm, plush or something in between. However, the right mattress should be more than that.

What is support?

Support is what keeps your body from sinking into the mattress. Instead, it holds you up. In addition, it also gives your spine the required support. This keeps your whole skeletal structure aligned in the right position. Furthermore, optimal support also means correct posture during your sleep.

Spinal support

If you need to wake up several times a night to stretch or crack your neck, it is a sign that your mattress does not provide optimal support. In turn, this means that your spine is not aligned properly for a good third of your day. Many of you will know how bad the wrong posture is throughout the day. Imagine what this does to your spine and posture over the many years of sleeping on the wrong mattress!

Let us have a look at the natural position of the human spine. From the back: your neck should curve forward toward the throat. Your mid back should curve out (in direction of the back), whereas your lower back curves forward in direction of the stomach.

Under normal circumstances, your muscles and ligaments make sure to keep the right posture and alignment during the day. Just as with the rest of the body, these muscles and ligaments need to rest and rejuvenate during the night. If you sleep on a mattress which provides too little support, your lower back will be under permanent stress during the day and night. In addition, your neck and mid back will also suffer more. Exposing your body to a bad mattress will lead to back problems.

Pressure relief

This is the second core element of a great mattress. Have you ever woken up from having numb fingers or toes? Or did you wake up from moving too much? Then you may have been sleeping on a mattress which did not provide optimal pressure relief!

What is pressure relief?

Pressure relief occurs when you slightly sink into the mattress. Many people may confuse this with comfort. However, comfort is subjective and not measurable. Pressure relief on the other hand is objective and measurable! Some may know this from burn units or wheelchair cushions.

Pressure relief means that the comfort material allows blood to flow to your extremities. In turn, this will prevent you from tossing and turning at night. Although it is healthy to move during the night, too much movement is your body’s way of making sure that blood circulates through every part of your body. You may remember waking up sometimes with numb fingers or toes. Optimal pressure relief would not allow this to happen!

Sleep fact: Did you know that you put seven times more pressure on your shoulders and hips if you sleep on your side?

Relaxing muscles

Correct pressure relief allows our muscles to relax and rejuvenate during sleep. In addition, it also provides tension relief. Furthermore, relaxed muscles will reduce stress (both on mind and body), reduce anxiety, control blood pressure, relieve stiffness and even strengthen immunity!

If you sleep on the wrong mattress which does not allow your muscles to relax, you may feel several negative side effects. As a matter of fact, insomnia is the most common result of muscle tension during sleep. In addition, constant muscle tension permanently drains energy from our body. This will make you fatigue faster during the day.

Removes tension from shoulders and hips

There is a general misconception about memory foam being pressure relieving, especially for your shoulders and hips. The bottom line is that memory foam isn’t at all. This is because memory foam creates a crater around your body. This will build up rather than relieve pressure because you stay in the same position much longer. In addition, memory foam is a slow response material. This means that it makes it very difficult for you to move in your sleep. Finally, as the pressure builds up, more heat is also created in the craters. Not only does the micro-climate change negatively, but it is also much more likely to cause friction and irritation on the skin and tissue. Vita Talalay latex on the other hand removes tension from the shoulders and hips perfectly. As our healthy comfort material contours perfectly with your body while providing optimal support, it relieves up to 30% more tension than any other foam mattress - all thanks to its natural adapting properties! Even the highest quality versions of HR polyfoam (in addition to less of the other qualities) do not come close to Vita Talalay latex. In addition, Vita Talalay latex immediately responds to your new position while you sleep at night. Remember that moving at night is normal and healthy. Vita Talalay latex just makes it easier for you. This way you will be able to recharge your batteries fully. Alternatively, you would be using the energy you need for the next day to move during your sleep. Doesn’t that go against the whole point of sleeping?

Back problems

A good supportive mattress will always ensure that you have no back pains. This is because it adjusts to your natural spine alignment, relieves the natural curvature at your spine and neck.

However, the wrong mattress will at best give you slight aches. This may be because it is made of cheap materials or is simply too hard or soft for the owner. As a result, you may suffer from a muscle spasm. The so called “mattress back” occurs when the muscles lock down to “splint” an irritated nerve. This will only be annoying throughout the day. However, a muscle spasm will mostly ease during the day as you move.

Sleeping on an unsupportive or old and saggy mattress will make things worse. Even if you fell asleep without any pain, the wrong or saggy mattress will work on your muscles and nerves all night. This will ensure waking up with gnawing back pains in the morning. These pains will also take a while to go away. This is especially true if you continue to sleep on the same mattress.

Furthermore, you may wake up in agonizing pain. This is most often the case when it no longer affects the muscles, but rather the nerves. Especially those who have suffered an injury to the back or otherwise have a disk problem may suffer from agonizing pain. If a disk or other structure continuously puts pressure on a nerve, it is very important that your spine is stable during the night. Alternatively, this will allow the disks from shifting further. The nerves will then let you know and not allow you to sleep! Finally, another type of back pain in connection with the wrong mattress is the soreness of pressure points. If your body does not lie in the right depth or comfort material, your capillaries may collapse. Capillaries are fine branching blood vessels, or simply tiny veins. The pain begins as the blood rushes to the pressure points as it circulates. The most common area to be affected by this is the tailbone. Especially when you are a back sleeper!

Ergonomics

Ergonomics is the science of making things fit for you, rather than you having to fit things. You may have heard about ergonomics in connection with your office space. However, have you heard about an ergonomic mattress?

We at Vita Talalay have perfected the ergonomic mattress together with our partner brands. Together, we make use of knowledge on the human anatomy, engineering and mechanics to ensure the highest performance of our products. Regardless of your body shape, weight or sleeping position, Vita Talalay latex will always provide the healthy sleep that you need. This makes finding the right mattress easy!

Why is Vita Talalay latex soft yet supportive?

Other comfort materials are usually either soft or supportive. Memory foam may feel soft, but it does not provide the required support. Instead, it builds pressure points which will disturb your sleep. Dunlop latex on the other hand, will be supportive but simply can’t handle the weight as well. It will not provide the support that you need.

However, Vita Talalay latex closes the paradox between being soft and supportive at the same time. This is because our latex has lower hysteresis and higher resilience than other comfort materials.

Low hysteresis

Lower hysteresis means that it is easier to roll over and move during sleep. This is because Vita Talalay latex flexes with the human body in motion. Only a very low amount of energy is then needed to move in your sleep. This allows you to permanently stay in your deep sleep and rejuvenate fully. Other comfort materials on the other hand require much more energy. This turns sleeping into a marathon rather than a time of rest. With Vita Talalay latex, it is simply much easier to reposition while having plush-like comfort. Please have a look at this video which compares the energy required to move in your sleep on Vita Talalay latex against memory foam.

High resilience

Higher resilience ensures that the mattress will always spring back to its original shape after being compressed. It indicates how elastic and “springy” the comfort material by measuring how quickly it reshapes. Please have a look at this video which compares the resilience of Vita Talalay latex against memory foam.

The unique open, round cellular structure

The unique open, round cellular structure of Vita Talalay latex is the reason for the many benefits of the healthy comfort material. The cells of the open, round structure are highly flexible and resilient. This is the main reason for the low hysteresis and high resilience. This is only possible thanks to the unique Vita Talalay production process. Our production process requires much more time, precision and know-how than that of any other comfort material. You may think of it as baking a soufflé. The production process of other comfort materials is instead similar to baking a simple cake. If you would like to know more about our unique production process, please click here!

Point elasticity

This is an often forgotten aspect when buying a new mattress. Point elasticity means that the comfort material only compresses at the point of contact. This is extremely helpful when you are sleeping together with your partner on one mattress. Even if one partner is heavier than the other, you will never disturb each other as the other will never feel any movement of the mattress. Not even if one gets up during the night! This is a unique benefit of Vita Talalay latex, which is why it is often not mentioned.

Durability

Another additional benefit of Vita Talalay latex is its durability. The healthy comfort material will maintain its resilient nature until the very end. This means that you will never have lumps or ridges for the entire lifespan of the mattress. In short: a Vita Talalay latex mattress, latex mattress topper and latex pillow will be soft and supportive for as long as you keep it at home! However, although our comfort material is also much more durable than others, we do recommend changing your mattress every 8-10 years.