Memory foam beds promise to contour to your body, offering the most pleasant sleep possible. However some people are hesitant to make the switch from traditional to foam beds. Let us help you decide with the pros and cons of memory foam beds.
Pros
Pain Relief
Memory foam mattresses are designed to contour and support your body with even weight distribution. They work by essentially ‘melting’ to body heat. When you get up, the memory foam returns to its original state, further emphasizing its supportive ability. This action reduces pressure on the lower back and major pressure points, which aids pain relief for many users.
Firmness depends on brand, but many offer a range from soft to medium to firm. Some brands even offer split firmness if you and your partner like different levels. One slight complaint through is un-guaranteed firmness: users report thinking they’ll receive a certain firmness in the store only to receive a slightly different firmness at home. This could be a result of wear and tear from store displays. The difference also was not enough to return or exchange the mattress, merely be surprised.
Less partner disturbance
Because of its construction, memory foam mattresses lessen vibrations and movements throughout the mattress. This means if your partner moves and shifts through the night, you’re less likely to feel his of her movement.
Memory foam mattresses also make little to no noise, versus traditional mattresses which can squeak.
High Reviews, regardless of price
In customer surveys of memory foam mattress users, high marks are offered to mattresses regardless of cost. This is nice in a consumer world predisposed towards a thinking that cheaper price equates to cheaper quality.
It also helps ease the transition to memory foam mattresses for a new time memory foam user by giving peace of mind in a lower cost product. The life span for most memory foam mattresses are about 7 years, close to the 8 year recommendation for traditional mattresses.
Cons
Odor
Many memory foam users report a gassy type odor that takes 1-3 weeks to completely dissipate. The odor is a result from processing the synthetic material and hasn’t proven to cause illness, but for odor sensitive people this can be problem. Very few users reported nausea and sore throats from the off-gassing. To help off-gas faster, consider allowing a newly acquired foam mattress to simply air out for 24 hours or so.
Lovemaking troubles. Seriously
With the exceptional contouring to one’s body, allowing individuals to almost sink into the mattress, some couples find lovemaking on a foam mattress a bit difficult. Of course where there’s a will there’s a way, so maybe you and your significant other won’t mind the challenge.
On this topic, the difficulty to move on a foam mattress isn’t limited to lovemaking- elderly, heavyset, and ill individuals may also find moving around and sitting up in a memory foam bed laborious.
Heat retention
Users complain the memory foam doesn’t dissipate heat very well, resulting in an above average temperature while sleeping. For people that enjoy a cooler feeling during slumber, this can definitely pose a problem.
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