Rikza Abdullah

Rikza Abdullah
Contributor
Jakarta

As adequate sleep is essential to health and wellbeing,
mattress manufacturers compete with each other by designing new
products and claiming their goods are the best to sleep on.

However, we must be very careful in selecting mattresses that
are most suitable for us because the quality of sleep is also
determined by the ways we sleep, apart from psychological
factors.

Psychologists, as quoted by the National Sleep Foundation of
the United States on its website, said that sleep was essential
to our mental and physical performance. Not getting enough sleep
might weaken our immune system and may be a risk factor for
diabetes, hypertension and obesity.

During sleep, the body secretes a number of necessary hormones
that affect growth, regulate energy and affect metabolic and
endocrine functions. For example, near the end of the sleep
period, the body secretes the stress hormone, cortisol, which
stimulates alertness. Sleep is also the time when growth hormone
is secreted, which drives childhood growth and plays an important
part in regulating muscle mass in adults. Further, the sleep
cycle affects secretion of the hormone, leptin. This hormone
tells the body when it should feel full and thus, has a direct
influence on appetite and weight.

Thus, good quality sleep should be uninterrupted by
inconveniences that may be caused by anything, including the use
of unsuitable mattresses and the wrong position of our bodies.

Unsuitable mattresses, for example, may cause us to toss and
turn on them and not to sleep well at night.

The number one reason we toss and turn is pressure points.
Innerspring mattresses, whose comfort layers are not thick
enough, for example, may put pressure on different areas of our
bodies, causing blood circulation to be restricted to those areas
and when it becomes uncomfortable, our bodies turn to a new
position.

The rigid, non-conforming surface of a hard mattress also
forces our bodies to adapt to its flat shape, bending our spines
into an unnatural position and creating pressure points at the
shoulders, hips and feet, which can cause us to toss and turn
trying to find a more comfortable position.

Another reason is improper spinal alignment. Since a
traditional mattress is flat and our bodies are curved, the
traditional mattress fails to offer enough support in the lumbar
region, often allowing our lower backs and hips to sink below the
rest of our bodies. This causes pressure and discomfort in that
area which in turn causes our bodies to turn to a new position.

To help reduce such inconvenience, manufacturers have
introduced various kinds of mattresses, such as those filled in
with springs, latex, foam, water or air. Some of them are made
adjustable to our needs when sleeping on them.

Rob Nijkrake, marketing manager of PT King Koil International
Indonesia, said here Wednesday that spring-mattresses were the
most popular throughout the world, followed by mattresses made of
latex and Talalay latex -- latex manufactured with a process
invented by Dr. Talalay of the United States.

"Spring-mattresses a large capacity for ventilation," he said.

"If a mattress has no adequate ventilation, our body, during
our sleep, will produce too much liquid that will be absorbed by
the mattress."

Some manufacturers and dealers claim that latex mattresses
dynamically conform to our bodies, providing support and pressure
relief. Relieving pressure reduces the tossing and turning that
interrupts sleep and brings needed oxygen and nutrients to tired,
aching muscles. Latex is also antimicrobial and dust mite
resistant, according to them.

Nijkrake said Talalay latex was better than general latex
because the former had open round cells and thousands of
ventilating ducts, thereby offering better air circulation and
moisture control, as well as reducing the chance of fungal and
bacterial growth.

Foam mattresses, when designed with adequate thickness and
density, will be temperature sensitive. In normal temperatures it
is firm. But when we lay down to sleep, they react to our bodies'
temperature and mold themselves to our shapes.

An airbed mattress provides total body support and proper
spinal alignment that is expected to reduce pressure points and
reduce tossing and turning.

Advanced Comfort, a U.S. mattress manufacturer, says on its
website that an airbed with adjustable firmness allows a sleeper
to customize the sleeping area to his/her exact liking. Whether
they like it softer or firmer, they, just with a single cordless,
hand-held, remote control, can select the comfort level that
suits them best or independently adjusts the firmness level on
either side of the bed with the push of a button.

Some manufacturers have introduced waterbeds, equipped with
tubes that are adjustable to wanted levels of support and can be
filled with heated water. On such waterbeds, sleepers' bodies are
supported in a posture perfect position, where their heads,
shoulders, hips and feet are kept in a straight line.

Out of those various mattresses, the good ones are those which
protect our backs during the our sleep. And the most important
thing needed for finding a correct mattress to support the back
involves knowing what position we sleep in. Some of us sleep on
our backs, some on our sides and some on our stomachs.

For a back sleeper -- someone who sleeps on his/her back -- a
mattress that is firm but not too hard is the most suitable. It
will hold the spine in check without irritating the muscles and
joints. A firm mattress works better in this case than a softer
type because the spine needs to be kept straight when the sleeper
is on his/her back.

The best kind of mattress for a side sleeper is the one with a
supportive density, which has enough give to conform to the bumps
and curves of the body, and with a softer overlay to provide more
comfort for the muscles and joints. Such a mattress is also
suitable for a stomach sleeper because a softer overlay is needed
to substitute for the lack of a pillow and provides more comfort
for muscles and joints. However, sleeping on the stomach is not
recommended as it will irritate the neck and back due to the
complete rotation of the neck to one side.

Nijkrake said mattresses, from whatever materials they were
made, would be most convenient if they are designed with
different zones, each of which would give more or less support,
depending on the heaviness and lightness of our body zones, so
that they would provide the right level of support for natural
body curves.