Mattress Facts: How the Mattress and Sleep Accessories Work Together
There’s a very good reason mattress salespeople often refer to the mattress and all its accoutrements as a sleep system. It’s not because they’re trying to make it sound fancy and sophisticated. (Well, maybe a little). Let’s break it down and see how your bed can be called a system.
Breaking Down the Sleep System
Let’s take first the definition of sys-tem: a set of things working together as parts of a mechanism or an interconnecting network.
Now let’s look at the parts of the dream machine.
Mattress
A well-designed mattress is very much a whole system within itself with the various layers that combine support, durability, innovations targeting comfort and sleep preferences, certifications for health and safety peace of mind and overall product satisfaction. Your local mattress retailer will be happy to show you samples of the materials and layers so you can see the important components inside a mattress.
Cover
This is what you’ll notice and touch first when mattress shopping, and there are a variety of designs and materials that appeal to individual preferences in look and feel.
Technologies
From specialty foams to phase changing materials like graphene, there’s been a lot of innovation in mattress-making that you might not know if it’s been a while since you’ve replaced your mattress.
Pillow
Pillow fights aside, this is a critical part of good sleep. Why, you ask? Spinal alignment is important to sleep health, and the pillow works in conjunction with the mattress to achieve a proper alignment of your head, neck and spinal column for the various sleep positions that many people have during the night. Finding the right pillow can be tricky because it takes some time to figure out what’s comfortable for you. An adjustable pillow can be a good solution because you can tailor it to your needs after several nights’ sleep and not worry about having to take it back to the retailer.
Sheets and Pillowcase
This is another area with a lot of advanced technologies in technical and performance textiles that offer cooling, warming, aromatherapy and other wellness benefits. With direct contact with your body, sheets and pillowcases need to help with temperature regulation, movement during sleep and sleep hygiene.
Blanket
Whether you use a duvet and cover or prefer a weighted blanket, temperature regulation is going to be an issue at different times of year. The problem of sleeping hot can be due to the mattress, but it can be as simple as your choice in top-of-bed items and whether the materials in them are best for the season. That’s why refreshing your bed with the right essentials may be necessary.
Protectors for your mattress and pillows
This is one of the most overlooked and underrated parts of the sleep system because it seems to many to be an unnecessary layer. In fact, it does double duty of protecting you from bacteria, mold and other allergens that can accumulate in the mattress or pillow over time while it’s also extending the life and performance of your mattress and pillow. Since it’s another layer between you and your mattress and pillow, you want to make sure the materials do not inhibit the performance of these products such as cooling benefits.
Foundation
