Mattresses 101

Your age and your health are just two factors to consider when choosing a mattress. Find out which type of mattress may help improve your quality of sleep.

When it comes to getting a good night’s sleep, your bed can make a big difference. That’s why it’s important to understand that choosing a mattress is not a “one size fits all” endeavor. In fact, research shows that selecting a mattress is extremely personal. Your age, your health, and whether you sleep ...

Once reserved for holidays and houseguests, air beds have recently carved out a much broader niche in the bed world, due largely to the efforts of the Sleep Number mattress company, maker of the popular Sleep Number bed. Today’s more robust, upscale air beds look similar to innerspring mattresses, but use air in lieu of coils. For aficionados, the air bed’s most attractive feature is its adjustable firmness, which can be easily tweaked by increasing or decreasing the air pressure ...

Adjustable Bed Overview

Adjustable beds are distinguished by their ability to bend and elevate into a variety of positions. Originally developed for hospitals, adjustable beds have long since evolved to bring their lavish benefits into the private home. Today, adjustable beds are available with a wide variety of mattress types, making them a potential enhancement to nearly any style of bed with few, if any, drawbacks.

Historically, adjustable beds have been most prevalent among those with back problems or other ailments, such ...

Latex Overview

Although they have been available for many decades, latex mattresses are currently experiencing a resurgence in popularity, particularly in Europe. In general, latex shares many of the benefits of memory foam, particularly in terms of its exceptional support and durability. However, latex lacks the highly conforming nature and slow recovery time that characterize memory foam. For those who dislike these aspects of memory foam, whether due to the warmth of the mattress, difficulty in changing positions or otherwise, latex ...

Memory Foam Overview

Memory foam, also known as visco-elastic foam, is a relatively new and increasingly popular development in the foam mattress market. Originally developed by NASA to protect astronauts against extreme “g-forces,” memory foam is known for its ability to mold itself to your body and support it evenly. By making contact with more of your body, the pressure of the mattress is spread over a greater portion of your body’s surface area, thereby reducing stress on your shoulders, hips, ...

The coils, also known as the core or the innerspring unit, provide the main support for the body. Proper support is essential not only for a good night’s sleep, but for maintaining a healthy spine. When considering the core of an innerspring mattress, there are a number of important factors: the number of coils used throughout the mattress, the way the coils are constructed, and the shape of the coils.

Coil Count

You might have heard a rumor that the more coils ...

When you think of a mattress, you are probably envisioning an “innerspring” mattress, meaning one whose core contains some amount of coil springs. Innerspring mattresses have long been the standard in the mattress industry, and still represent over 80% of the mattress market. Most innerspring mattresses look relatively similar from the outside, but take a closer look and you’ll find huge differences. Here are the basics of “innerspring anatomy” that will help you learn how to distinguish one innerspring ...

Buying a bed means making sense of a dizzying variety of materials, construction techniques and features — memory foam, innerspring, latex, pillow-top — the list goes on and on. What does it all mean?

Let’s review some of your options in more depth. Here are the seven most common categories of mattresses available for purchase:

Innerspring Mattresses

Long the standard of the mattress industry, representing over 80% of the market, innerspring mattresses are distinguished from other types of beds by their use of ...

To help you with your mattress “lingo,” we have compiled this handy list of definitions for some of the mattress industry’s most common terms.

Adjustable Bed

Type of bed distinguished by its ability to bend and elevate into upright or other positions. Sometimes referred to as an electric bed or hospital bed. See our Adjustable Bed Guide for more information on the various features and benefits of adjustable beds.

Air Bed

Type of bed distinguished by its use of an air-filled Core, rather than ...