After years of nightly use, the foams inside every mattress slowly collapse, and collapsed foam never springs back. You feel it as sagging, as a bed that has gone soft in some places and hard in others, and once it happens the mattress stops spreading your weight, so your hips and shoulders spend all night carrying pressure on two small points, which is why they complain first thing. The worn springs underneath are all connected, so every time he rolls over the whole bed rings like a bell and you cop it. And a dead mattress traps heat against you, fighting the one degree of cooling your body needs before it can fall asleep. None of that is age. All of it is the bed.
Inside the mattress, part one
Springs that match where the weight sits
- Your spine rests level
- Twice tempered steel
- Built for side sleepers and back sleepers
Under the surface sit hundreds of individual pocket springs in seven zones. The zones under your hips and shoulders push back more firmly because that is where your body carries its weight, and the zones under your head, waist and legs push back more gently. The result is simple to feel: your spine rests level all night instead of sagging into a hole, which is what stops that nagging lower back ache by morning.
Inside the mattress, part two
Foam that learns your shape every night
- Less pressure on your hips and shoulders
- You stop feeling him roll over
- Moulds to you, then springs back
The comfort layer is a high density memory foam that behaves a little like honey and a little like rubber. Where your body presses in, it slowly gives and moulds around you, spreading your weight across a much bigger area so your hips and shoulders stop carrying the load on two small points. And because it absorbs movement instead of bouncing it back, when your partner rolls over at 2am, the wave dies in the foam before it ever reaches your side.
Inside the mattress, part three
Your body has to cool down before it can sleep
- About 1 degree cooler to fall asleep
- Heat moves down and out
- Air flows through the open coils
UC Berkeley sleep scientist Matthew Walker puts it plainly: to fall asleep, your core temperature needs to drop by about one degree, and your body sheds that heat through your skin into whatever you are lying on. An old mattress traps that heat against you, which is the 2am doona throw. A well built one lets the heat move through the comfort layers and out through the open coil chamber below, and on our cooler models a gel foam layer helps disperse heat for a cooler sleep feel.
