The Best Mattresses for Stomach Sleepers
In people's busy, fast-paced lives, they often sacrifice sleep in order to get enough hours in the day. In so doing, they sacrifice their health. Sleep is an important part of how the body and mind function, restore and repair. Without sufficient sleep, you can easily compromise your immune system, delay physical healing and even impair your judgment and coordination. If you sleep on your stomach, you also need enough support from your mattress to ensure you don't spend the night in an "S" shape, which causes back pain.
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Support
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According to Michael Breus, Ph.D., author of "Beauty Sleep: Look Younger, Lose Weight, and Feel Great Through Better Sleep," the key to good sleep for anyone is a medium to firm mattress. Breus makes no special distinction for stomach sleepers, but numerous retail mattress chains claim that stomach sleepers need their mattresses to be on the firmer side to get enough mid-torso support.
Latex
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Latex mattresses have become increasingly popular and offer a naturally firmer feel. Breus' studies found a high percentage of people who tried latex mattresses did very well on them and were pleased with their sleep. Latex also can be a component of "sleep number" or custom mattresses in which mattress sellers put together mattress layers to meet your personal taste in mattress texture. Many custom mattress retailers claim a very firm underneath layer with a thin but soft enough outer-layer for comfort will do best for a stomach sleeper.
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Inner-coils
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Inner-coil mattresses are one of the oldest and still most prevalent forms of mattress on the market. Compressed springs for the core of these mattresses. The more tightly wound the coils, the firmer they are. Despite the technology being older, coil mattresses are perfectly fine for stomach sleepers and generally have a longer life cycle than other mattress types. Breus denies any relation between price and comfort. In the end, the mattress with the right medium to firm support should make a stomach sleeper happy.
Foam
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Because your body heat causes foam mattresses to contour to your body, they can be very comfortable. Although some mattress retailers push stomach sleepers away from foam, claiming that the contours only aid and abet bad posture, there's no clinical backing for it. Not all foams, however, are the same. A soft foam is as bad as any soft mattress for a stomach sleeper. The biggest drawback to foam is that many people complain it traps heat and makes them too hot at night.
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References
- Photo Credit woman in bed image by jimcox40 from Fotolia.com
