
Ask HN: which mattress for best sleep? - light3
Since we spend 1/3 of our lives sleeping, and sleeping is so important for learning and health, I think this is an important topic.<p>I'm moving and looking for a new bed to sleep in, but can't find much information on the benefits of different types of mattresses. For example Ikea offers sprung, latex, foam mattresses, and there are also air and water beds. Which mattress offers better sleep?<p>Another consideration is price, obviously there maybe more spring or better material for the more expensive ones, but is it worth the extra cost?
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latch
Little mattress rant (i have a suggestion if you want to skip to the
bottom)...

In Canada, no two different chain sells the same mattress. So Sleep Country
might sell the Sealy xNight 3487 while MattressMart sells the Sealy Cloud 4.3.
The specs are always slightly different. It makes comparison shopping
impossible, it is clearly intentional, and I can't believe its legal.

In Hong Kong, within department stores, each brand is sold by its own sales
staff. So when you get to the mattress floor, there's a billion sales people
(which isn't unusual in HK) and they each have 3 or so mattress for you to try
out...they don't know/wont' tell you anything about any other mattress. They
aren't interested in helping you find the best mattress in the huge choice,
they are interested in selling you one of their mattress.

Someone needs to break the Mattress Cartel and its diabolic ways!

As for suggestions, my last mattress was an all-latex mattress. It was more
expensive, but I loved it. Unlike those foam mattress which are (a) hot and
(b) feel like ur sinking, these feel a lot more like a normal mattress with a
couple key points. The most important being that they are [supposedly] more
dust-mite resistant and they last much longer..so in 4 years you don't start
to feel a spring (because their is no springs!) and the thing still has its
original shape, more or less.

edit:

Also worth pointing out that you can negotiate the hell out of
this...especially if you go to a national chain. Their markup has got to be
over 50%...The mattress I speak of was priced at something like $3800CAD and I
think we got it down to $1650 with some extra covers or pillows or
something....and I still felt like there was room to go.

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amalag
I don't think expensive mattresses are worth the cost. I am from USA but spent
10 years in India sleeping on the ground with a blanket for cushioning. 1/3 of
your time is sleeping, but 90% of the world sleeps on simple bedding. The
mattress industry IMHO is a big fraud, like so many things in the USA. Selling
non-necessities as if they are necessities. I have a $180 8" memory foam
mattress from Walmart which I think is great.

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mhd
It depends a lot on your sleep position. A lot of the more complicated
foam/latex mattresses have different zones, so e.g. your protruding shoulder
and hip bones can sink in deeper in the softer material at that position. Now,
if you're not sleeping on your side, you might not need material with a huge
difference in softness. Never mind your general body shape or weight
(mattresses come in different degrees of hardness).

If you're a side sleeper, healthy and fit, don't toss about too much, buy a
reasonably expensive foam mattress. In the tests I've seen, the mid-
range/expensive IKEA mattresses usually get C to B- marks. Which is a lot
better than the average... (And at least where I live they have a great return
policy, so it's easy to get something and sleep on it for a month)

If it's not too expensive for your health plan, consulting a doctor might be a
good idea. They usually know their stuff a lot better than your usual mattress
salespeople.

Which reminds me: Do a bit of research before buying the more exotic systems.
As with anything related to health (and especially back pain), this field is
ripe with quacks and snakeoil.

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golfga
I bought a tempur-pedic earlier this year and I have to say it's the best
sleep I've ever had. I used to toss and turn during the night and I usually
had back pain in the mornings, but not with the tempur-pedic. I get
uninterrupted sleep and no morning back pain.

My previous mattresses were decent spring types and they were comfortable, but
nothing compared to the tempur-pedic.

~~~
salemh
I have chronic back pain (torn muscles, annual lumbar tear, now bulging, etc).
It worked great for several years, but, for some with back pain a more stiff
matress (or a very light foam cover on the floor) seems to be the most
beneficial. This is what I am transitioning too.

Also, Tempure Pedics (and most foams) tend to retain heat, person dependant, a
lot. So much that I'll wake in hot-sweats and uncomfortable. I am now also
seeking alternatives because 1) Tempur is too hot, 2) Tempur has become too
soft for my needs.

A foam "cover" on the floor is working much better at the moment.

Also in the interim, for cooling down the foam, I have ordered:
<http://coolingmattress.com/> from Amazon to give that a whirl.

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johnsocs
Tempurpedic. With that said let me add my story.

I'm a 30 year old male, and consider myself in good shape. We had a generic
$600 mattress before we got our expensive tempurpedic and I had constant back
pain after a few years of sleeping on it, often times I found myself waking up
at 2-3AM to head down to our couch for the rest of the night because my back
hurt so much. The nights I did make it through the night in the bed I could
barely walk in the morning because my back was so far out of alignment.

In comes the Tempurpedic and pillows... After the first nights sleep on the
new bed %90 of the pain was gone.. by the second night I felt like a new
person, no pain to be found. Since then I have yet to have any back pain.

The tempurpedic's are expensive, but when you consider what most people spend
on a car relative to what they spend on a bed they are nothing, and besides
they improve quality of life far more then any car could. You only get one set
of joints and muscles in your life, treat them right.

~~~
salemh
Though I dumped on a earlier comment above <http://goo.gl/5GeaM> on the Tempur
Pedic, it did serve me very well the last 7 years when I first purchased it.
Thats 7 years of brilliant sleep, and worth the money.

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gyom
I got a relatively hard foam mattress after I realized that I needed better
support for my back (I won't get into how I found that out).

As far as I can tell, it's the best mattress that I've ever slept on. It's
hard enough so that it doesn't bend inwards when I put my weight on it, and
that keeps my spine straight when I sleep sideways. I tried "memory foam" at
the store, but it didn't really seem like it work for that purpose.

The foam mattress has to be hard enough so it supports you without "caving in"
too much, yet sufficiently soft so that it doesn't hurt you. The ideal
hardness (for me) falls somewhere in the spectrum between a Japanese tatami
mat (too hard) and a big sponge (too soft).

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ubojan
How about no mattress: <http://www.zafu.net/sleepergonomics.html>

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light3
Nice article! Will try this.

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AlexLa
You should try them out. When I bought myself one I lay for a couple of
minutes on each of 4 models to see if it's comfy for me.

But don't buy too soft mattress. It could seem really cool at first time but
your back will hurt like hell next morning. Beside it's more healthy to sleep
on a hard mattress.

Anyway all of mattresses I saw are two sided. One side is little softer then
other. Test the harder side at the store (it should be comfy for you) and if
after several nights your back will hurt - flip to the soft side. You need to
sleep a several nights on the mattress as your back needs a time to get used
to it.

~~~
petervandijck
Warning though: laying on a mattress for a few minutes in a shop != sleeping
well on it all night for months.

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RoyG
Tempurpedic all the way. We've had one for 8 years, and it's the only mattress
my wife, who has a chronic back condition, sleeps well on.

Your choice of pillow is important as well, and Tempurpedic's pillow is also
top notch. Also, a lot cheaper than the mattress, if you want to start there.

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salamander
Ergonomics of Sleep: Sweet Dreams on a Hard Surface at
www.zafu.net/sleepergonomics.html Profound experience and research debunking
the bedding industry's sales gimmics. I am the author of the article. I
designed a firm sleep surface with slatted platform frame and organic
kapok/wool futon. Also contains infrar red calming effect. Trying to get back
to simple and introduce the idea that the body benefits from resistance (in
this case, something reletively firm like we had before modern bedding.) Also
regulates body temp and respiration better than any other material I could
find.

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tnorthcutt
I think foam is the way to go. It's especially great if there are two people
in the bed, since it doesn't bounce/move as much, so you don't disturb each
other.

I sleep on this: [http://www.amazon.com/Sleep-Innovations-12-inch-Memory-
Mattr...](http://www.amazon.com/Sleep-Innovations-12-inch-Memory-
Mattress/dp/B003CT37L0)

Very happy with it. I don't believe there's anything special about a Tempur-
Pedic to warrant the ridiculous price tag. Something like this mattress is
much, much cheaper, and in my opinion just s good.

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dmm
I just sleep on the floor. It's cheap and works just fine. I find that
exercise helps the quality of my sleep more than anything else.

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petervandijck
Ikea has pretty good guides about how to choose a mattress in their shops.
(ie. it depends a lot on your body weight, etc.)

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actionbrandon
W hotel beds are sweet. When I found out you can buy them I was really
excited, but then decided to pass on a $1000(ish) mattress...its a recession.
My girlfriend told me ruelala was selling them yesterday for 7-800. I would
seriously consider investigating these beds if you are in the market.

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ryanlchan
Buy a stiff spring mattress then put a thick memory foam topper on it. You
won't notice the difference between it and the $3k+ Tempurpedic mattresses and
you'll spend a lot less.

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BillAtHRST
The Dux bed costs a fortune, and is worth every penny.

<http://www.duxiana.com/>

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amalag
I have a VERY difficult time believing that a person owning a Dux bed gets
better sleep than a farmer sleeping on some blankets in some corner of the
world. Lets face it, if you have money, someone will figure out a way to take
it from you and put a smile on your face. Another so called necessity.

