When my Husband and I got married over four years ago, we spent some of our wedding present money on buying ourselves a memory foam mattress. The Tempur mattress had been recommended to us, but at the time was beyond our budget due to the brand name, so we decided to take a chance on buying a conventional memory foam mattress instead. This proved to be one of the best purchases we have ever made, and this hub is to tell you why if you want the best night's sleep every night, you should definitely be looking at buying either a Tempur or a memory foam mattress of your own.
First of all let me give you a bit of background to our situation at the time. We had only been a couple for four months when we got married, and we had moved into a rented flat / cottage that was unfurnished. Both of us had debts and money was tight, so initially we had to settle for a lot of substandard, secondhand items of furniture, and this included our mattress. Once we were married my Stepfather gave us a £500 wedding present, and after four months of suffering sleepless nights tossing and turning on a hard, lumpy, sprung mattress, we decided a comfortable mattress had to be the best thing we could invest some of the money in.
I began to search eBay for a sensibly priced mattress made from memory foam as I knew Tempura would probably be very expensive, especially by the time we added on the shipping costs to Guernsey. Luckily I found a King Size memory foam mattress that would fit our bed for about £250. If I remember correctly even with the freight costs it only cost us about £300 altogether, and so was a bargain buy that we never regretted.
From the moment our memory foam mattress arrived we couldn't consider sleeping on anything else. The way it moulded to our shape made for a perfect night's sleep and I for one found it hard to drag myself out of bed every morning following its arrival. A memory foam mattress seems to naturally hold warmth, so there was little danger of feeling the cold in the night. Most aches and pains both my Husband and I had been experiencing on our old mattress (now consigned to the bonfire), instantly vanished, and going to bed became an absolute pleasure, (not to mention other nocturnal activities!).
At first glance I have to confess that the memory foam mattress did just look like a large piece of yellow sponge, but the texture was different, and this was obvious once you used your hand to force a hand print into the surface, (and then watched as this took several seconds to vanish once the pressure was released). Our mattress came with a removable zip off cover in a pleasant cream colour, so we could wash the cover when required before zipping it back on to our mattress.
What we also quickly discovered was that unlike most mattresses a memory foam mattress supports all the contours of the body lying on it. A normal mattress doesn't do this, leaving unsupported areas that end up strained and aching. Memory foam follows your contours virtually as closely as a water bed would, so leaving you fully supported down to every last inch of your body.
About 18 months ago we bought a very nice leather bed that came with a sprung mattress of a very good make. We took our memory foam mattress off our bed in order to use the new mattress, and surprise surprise, even after persevering for a week we found the sprung mattress so uncomfortable that we took it off the bed and put our memory foam one back on. We gave the sprung mattress to my Sister as her mattress was on its last legs.
A year and a half later my Sister has just replaced the mattress we gave her with a memory foam one of her own, and apparently she now struggles to get out of bed because she is too comfortable to want to. I might add my Sister had a stroke when she was aged 27, and suffers from many unusual aches and pains in her limbs. These pains have affected her sleep for many years as she is now 45, yet since investing her Christmas money in a memory foam mattress she is sleeping better than she has in all of those years.
Guess what, she sent the apparently good make of sprung mattress we had given her to the local dump!
A Bit of History on Memory Foam.
So why is memory foam so successful and so comfortable to sleep on? Well this is something I intend to cover here.
Memory foam was developed under a contract by NASA's Ames Research Centre to improve the safety of aircraft cushions. The goal was to create a material that would relieve astronauts of the pressure generated by the g-forces they experienced during lift-off. Their challenge was to develop a material that would provide support, cushioning, and prevent the creation of pressure points.
The scientists were successful in creating the first ever visco-elastic polyurethane foam. It had properties that would reduce the effects of g-forces by moulding to the shape of the astronaut’s body and act as a full-body shock absorber. This unique new foam returned to its original shape once the pressure was removed.
When NASA eventally released memory foam to the public domain in the early 1980s, Fagerdala World Foams was one of very few companies willing to work with the foam, as the manufacturing process remained difficult and unreliable. Their 1991 product, the "Tempur-Pedic Swedish Mattress" eventually led to the mattress and cushion company, Tempur World.
Memory foam has an open cell structure that reacts to body heat and weight by 'moulding' to your body, helping relieve pressure points, preventing pressure sores, etc. Most memory foam has the same basic chemical composition, however the density and layer thickness of the foam means different mattresses feel very different. A high density mattress will mean it returns to position more slowly and will be firmer; a lower density will feel more like a normal foam mattress.
One of the best priced and reliable sources of memory foam mattresses I have heard of is a company called Select Foam, and if you take a look at their website I am sure you will agree they have a lot to offer if you decide to buy a memory foam mattress for youselves.
Adjustable Bed for the Elderly!
Flip vs. No - Flip Mattresses!
I did buy one, and it is great. Not too soft, not too hard perfect. I love the wood frames too. Good hub.
Hope you do Ben, I am certain you will not look back once you have tried one for yourself. They take a week or so to get used to at first (probably because they are so much more comfortable than you are used to), but after that you should sleep like a baby.
Thanks for all the extra research Misty, once we get some more dough, I think we'll give one a try!
Some information that might help answer the degrading problem is here.
Latex mattresses, while they are a quality product, are exorbitantly expensive. A full mattress set with a foundation can cost as much as $3,000.00 dollars, compared to about $1,500.00 for a memory foam set. One advantage that probably belongs to latex mattresses is related to durability. Latex mattresses can last fifteen years without any compromise in performance. Memory foam, because of its greater pliability and ability to conform very closely to the body, tends to be slightly less durable, but can still last ten years with little or no degradation. In fact, some memory foam mattress brands such as Sleep Aid place up to twenty-year warranties on their mattresses. In any case, both memory foam mattresses and latex mattresses will last far longer than traditional innerspring mattresses, which have a lifespan of around five years.
One of the things that make memory foam unique, also giving it an important advantage over latex foam, is its ability to react to body heat. When pressure points bear down on a memory foam mattress, they transfer more heat, and therefore soften the foam. It is this reaction to pressure points that allows memory foam to conform so readily to different body types. For those suffering from excessive pressure point arousal, or specific sleep disorders like fibromyalgia, memory foam mattresses will be a better choice, as they relieve pressure points more effectively than do latex foam mattresses. The most expensive product is not always the best, and mattresses are one instance where thorough research, less expensive memory foam mattresses comes out on top.
Apparently they can be quite warm to sleep on, but this can be helped if you make sure the bed base they are on is slatted rather than solid (in other words avoid divan beds). The air flow through the slatted bed bases reduces the heat. I have to say I haven't had any of your negative experiences with my mattress, and you are the first person I have heard of that has. I opted for the cheaper memory foam rather than the Tempur brand, (perhaps it is the brand name you paid for rather than the quality, although I can't be sure). I guess it also depends on how warm the climate is where you live.
Perhaps you would be better off with a memory foam mattress topper on top of a normal mattress instead. These are not full thickness, so should be cooler for you.
We were happy with ours for several years but now it is hell to sleep on- my husband won't. He sleeps mostly in the guest room, lol. We can't afford to get anything new until my husband's plays in Argentina and Kansas prove up. What I hate about it? We bought the real thing and in my experience, the foam does degrade. Also, the seal is so tight to my body that I wake up sweating. So I laid a blanket on top of the foam, which helps. But lately even that has not stopped me from roasting. Sorry. I am hitting negative hubs today. Must be because I did not sleep well last night on that dang bed, lol. Yawn. I need a nap.
Well I can't say for certain, but we have had ours for over four years now and there is no sign of it degrading or any strange odours. I certainly have no regrets or bad experiences and would say go for it if you are interested.
Hey Misty great article, you sold me! My only question, and this is the one thing that has kept me away from a memory foam mattress, is does the foam degrade? I'm afraid that, being made out of polyurethane, that over time it would give off harmful vapors.
I hope I'm wrong though! Have you had any experience with odors? Or read anything on this?
My sister, who has been experiencing back problems lately, got a foam mattress and swears by it. Thanks for a good hub!