If you sleep for an average of eight hours each night, you'll spend about 229,961 hours of your lifespan snoozing. It's equivalent to 13,797,660 minutes, or 9,581 days, or 26.25 years.
So whichever way you prefer to look at it, you'll spend about one-third of your life lying in bed. That's too much time to spend lying on an uncomfortable mattress. Furthermore, that one-third of your life is too important to trust untested online mattress offers or questionable advice from online reviews.
1. Every "body" is different
Our bodies are all made differently, in more ways than one. For example, a lightweight sleeper does not preclude having a small frame; the opposite is true. So it does not make sense that a 110-kg pro wrestler with a bad back would sleep well on the same mattress as a child weighing 30kgs. The truth is that no two sleeper's preferences and needs are exactly alike, and you can't trust a website to know which mattress you need.
So, a one-size for all mattress based on a formula or technology will not cut it. The bed we sleep on needs to respond to our body shape and weight and not the other way round. Ok, granted, the sleeper may need to adjust a little sometimes, but it should not take too long.
At BayShop, it is our conviction that a good mattress needs to meet three fundamental criteria:
Firm support
A hard mattress is different from a firm mattress. Hard refers to the tensile rating and does not necessarily equate to good support. For example, you get rigid support sleeping on the floor, but it is hardly good support for human beings with unique curvatures; hence you will rest with the wrong posture and wake up with aches in the morning. Therefore, a firm mattress keeps you not only well supported but also responds to your body shape and keeps you in good posture.
Stable core
A stable core solves two issues for sleepers - spinal support and motion transfer. First, a mattress with weak coils or foams cannot provide a consistent cushion for your spine. A worn-out mattress is an excellent example of poor spinal support, where the core is inconsistent and not keeping your spine well supported during sleep. Secondly, a stable mattress core that is dense and made of the same material (like 100% all-natural latex mattresses) offers a quiet and stable internal structure, so each sleeper can hardly feel the movements of the other.
Pressure Relief
We spend 7-8 hours lying primarily on our sides or back every night. If we sleep on a harsh surface, we would be absorbing a lot of pressure on our joints, nerves and skin. Also, too much stress can cause friction that can develop into sores. Therefore, your mattress needs to be not only firmly supporting you but should also be plush to alleviate pressure on your body. read more on characteristics of latex mattress
2. Every mattress type or brand is different
There are three mainstream mattresses - Spring, Foam and Latex mattresses. The first two are made from synthetic materials, whereas latex is entirely natural. Then if you add the hybrid mattresses, there are even more varieties. These variations come about either due to design or economic reasons.
Synthetic materials are easier to make and would cost less to procure. However, whether it is a spring or foam mattress, the upper layers are synthetic foam layers. So regardless of the type of mattress, you are sleeping directly on the foam.
Not all spring or foam mattresses are the same. Different brands use different types of coils, which can vary in thickness and size. Then depending on the design, a single or multiple layers of foam is set on top of the springs. So each brand formulates its configuration to achieve the desired comfort levels and price range for its intended market.
Where latex mattresses are concerned, if you think that all latex mattresses are the same, you may be in for a big surprise. Latex mattresses are made through the process of vulcanisation, either using the Dunlop or Talalay method. The density formulation, quality of latex, percentage of natural latex used, equipment, knowledge and finally, nature itself plays a part in arriving at the final product. So every factory or even every piece of latex core produced is not the same.
You hear people use the rating 8/10 or 7/10 for firmness, but these ratings can be vague. Furthermore, even the use of ILD ratings is subjective if the materials used are different. For example, a latex mattress and memory foam mattress with the same ILD ratings can indeed feel very different.
It may seem like a lot, but the differences are there because beds are made for humans and not machines. Therefore, sleeping comfort cannot be understood on a fixed narrative but has to be sampled and defined by the sleeper.
3. Recommendations aren't always reliable.
Nowadays, you can buy pretty much anything your heart desires online, from drones to doggie accessories, and the list is growing. In mega internet stores or even general bed stores, the objective is to market, move and sell as many products as you can in the quickest time. If the product is generally well known and isn't unique, the business model would make sense. But, for mattresses, the buying process needs to be more conscientious.
As much as technology has advanced in explaining the features and benefits, it is still pretty much a one-size-fits-all solution. For example, you might read online reviews to find out which vacuum cleaner is more likely to retain its suction or determine whether teenagers like the latest fashion trends. But when it comes to purchasing a new bed, only you know what's best for you, and the only way you can figure out which mattress is right for you is actually to try it in person.
Recommendations and reviews are "virtual" and cannot fully tell you if the mattress is supportive, stable and pressure-relieving. Furthermore, bringing a substantially sized item home to try for 100 days can potentially cause you even more sleepless nights. Just imagine having to bear with discomfort, off-gassing and other issues while going through the headache of more rounds of shopping for a solution, should the mattress you brought home does not meet what it says on the website.
In summary, we believe the better approach is to acquire information and then test and compare first hand. Of course, it won't hurt to do some research on consumer information websites. Still, they can't compare with personally sleep-testing the mattress (actually sleeping on it for at least 15mins) and talking with a knowledgeable specialist who can address questions of what, why, how and more. A good sales specialist would cover all your questions that FAQs cannot answer.
At BayShop, we specialise only in 100% all-natural latex mattresses. We feel that we need to specialise because it is hard for us not to. For example, it is hard to recommend a synthetic mattress when we genuinely believe a better solution is available. So for us, it's just all-natural or nothing at all.
For the past seven years, we have operated with a sleep studio, where we allow clients to drop by for an exclusive 1-hour appointment to have a meaningful test session and ask as many questions as they have. It is very different from showrooms, as our studio is peaceful and conducive to actual sleep sessions. Based on experience, we observed that you need at least 15 minutes to get acquainted with a mattress and a bit longer to get to know them.
Be Rest Assured.