How to Decide when to Replace Your Mattress

A mattress should provide both comfort and support. A bad night's sleep can often lead to grouchiness, insomnia, and decreased productivity. When debating the choice to invest in a better mattress there are three things to examine about your current sleep situation.

Comfort or Pain

Usually comfort is the best indicator when deciding if you need to throw yours out. Since American's typically spend about a third of their days in bed, comfort should be a top priority. If you wake up with back or neck pain often. These could be red flag's. Restless sleep can be directly caused by lying uncomfortably. Not getting an adequate amount of sleep can take it's toll in every other aspect of your life. If you now are experiencing a stiff back or lower back pain, and you weren't a year ago; it may be time to retire your mattress.

Wear and Tear

Over time the support in a mattress can wear out. Manufacturers advise visibly inspecting your mattress for damage twice a year. Any sagging is an obvious sign of wear and tear. If you can see body impressions (even when you are not lying down) your current mattress probably needs thrown out. The Better Sleep Council advises that an appropriate mattress will keep your spine in the correct alignment. They also advise the your mattress should allow enough space for easy movement.

Quality, construction, and materials used can all effect the life of any mattress. Springs popping out of the side of a mattress is a defect and not normal wear and tear. If purchasing a mattress with a manufacturers lifetime warranty you are protecting yourself against factory defects like this one. A warranty will not cover normal wear and tear.

Age of Your Mattress

Most specialists and manufacturers recommend replacing any mattress that is over eight years old. Even if there are no obvious signs of damage to the exterior of your mattress, it could be the interior that is causing discomfort. With age, coils and/ or foam gradually compress to and loose their ability to expand. Whether you choose a coil or foam bed, it is what's on the inside of your mattress that you want to work. Remember that a mattress is made to work with a box spring. If your box spring and mattress are not part of the same set they may not function properly.

There are so many choices in mattress styles today. You can choose a foam mattress, a foam memory mattress, or stick with a coil mattress. Always remember if sleeping two to a bed a queen mattress or king mattress is necessary for both to get proper rest.

Sources: www.bettersleep.org
www.abetterbed.com
www.bigbackpain.com
www.msnbc.com