How Beds and Pillows Hinder Sleep

Doomed From the Start: All beds and pillows are not created equal

For most mattresses and pillows in stores today, the sleep they deliver is destined to be average, perhaps above average, and frequently poor. Why not great?

Top 4 Culprits:

When it comes to beds, "curves against flat" are constantly at odds with great sleep. Your body's curves, pressing against most of the flat mattresses and pillows of today, just aren't accommodated well enough by those traditional sleep surfaces.

Throughout the night with a traditional mattress, your sleep is disturbed by high bed-to-body pressures at the waist, hip and shoulder areas, combined with poor postural alignment during sleep.

It causes light sleeping and fragmented sleeping (tossing and turning). You wake feeling un-refreshed and bleary-eyed. And maybe with morning aches and pains. Here's what happens:

Bed-to-Body Pressure—Tossing and Turning

Typical mattresses largely fail to minimize peak pressures that the mattress exerts on the body. As a result, high pressure points occur at the body's prominences, particularly the hip, thighs, buttocks and shoulder areas. The high-pressure spots you see in these images will cause tossing and turning during the night.

Most types of beds and brands you're probably familiar with in the stores do not escape; see actual pressure maps, below. This is a side-lying test subject, (head at left is not visible on pillow, feet are at the right). Shown here are images of three COMPETITORS' beds versus a NIGHTCARE low-pressure mattress with NightCare technology. NightCare's difference is one that you can feel, savor and see.

In the high pressure shown by RED and ORANGE, your blood circulation is restricted during sleep. Your body signals you when it's time to shift positions. A typical sleeper will toss, turn or shift positions between 40 and 70 times per night!

FOR POINT of REFERENCE: Here's the same individual being tested on one of NightCare's Ultr-low Pressure mattresses:

Note the differences: NightCare minimizes peak bed-to-body pressures. It delivers ultra-low pressures without the sleep-disrupting characteristics of a typical mattress. It's the performance your perfect bed should have. (Note: All images are actual pressure maps of the same side-lying test subject, pressure-mapped using advanced XSensor image mapping technology.)

Spinal (Body) Mis-alignment During Sleep

Since the human body is contoured and flexible, it is forced by gravity to conform to the typical mattress surface. The spine and neck are forced out of natural alignment, creating muscular stress, spinal shear, and most likely, some breathing constrictions.

These images illustrate the forces trying to dislocate the spine. Your body's spine and muscle tissues are under strain, causing sleep quality degradation and, sometimes, low back pain. Your body isn't actually segmented of course, but the spine must bend to conform to your traditional mattress or airbed. This strain can cause tossing and turning, light sleeping, aches, pain and morning stiffness. NightCare solves this with its sleep science and the most advanced, patented design and technology inside the mattress.

That Sinking Feeling

Further undermining of great sleep can occur when sleeping on a bed made largely of traditional memory foam. While offering pressure-relieving features, its advantages may be offset by some disadvantages. Tendancies reported by some sleepers include a “molded-in-bed” or “sinking-in-quicksand-like feeling” often described as uncomfortable and confining. A memory foam mattress can also sleep uncomfortably warm. These tendancies may not be noticeable immediately, or while trying beds in the store -- time is needed for it to react to your body heat. (These are why NightCare's primary material-of-choice is natural latex, made from the pure milk sap of tropical rubber trees. Combined with NightCare's design technology, its sleep performance has no rivals.

Pillow Selection

Unintentionally, many pillows actually position the head and neck in poor and unhealthy sleeping positions, without proper head and neck support. This can interfere with good breathing (a contributor to snoring and/or sleep apnea), and cause or aggravate aches and pains in the neck and shoulders.