It’s thought that between 50 and 70 million U.S. adults have a sleep disorder in the U.S., including a wide range of conditions from insomnia to sleep apnea.
This may also include a vast majority of people who struggle to get the requisite amount of sleep every single night, which can easily occur when you have a hectic lifestyle or a disrupted sleep cycle.
While many people take these issues for granted, however, there’s an interesting science behind a good night’s sleep and understanding this can help you develop a healthier cycle. We’ll explore this further in the post below while asking what practical steps are being taken to improve the mattresses available on the consumer market.
What Defines a Good Nights’ Sleep?
Before we delve deeper into this, defining what constitutes a good nights’ sleep is important. Fortunately, there are many simple factors against which your sleeping pattern can be measured, with various scientific studies have borne this out in recent times.
According to the National Sleep Foundation, people who enjoy a healthy sleep cycle should take less than half an hour to fall asleep, while these individuals should wake up no more than once per night.
In instances where you do wake up in the middle of the night, you should find yourself drifting back into sleep within 20 minutes or so. As a general rule, you should also be asleep for 85% of the time that you spend in bed, as anything less than this may be indicative of a disrupted cycle.
While these factors should only be considered guidelines and measured against your own unique circumstances, if you’re failing to meet one or more of them, you may have an issue with your sleep cycle. If this is the case, you’ll need to identify any underlying issues that exist and strive to correct these where possible.
The Science behind a Good Nights’ Sleep and how to Improve your Cycle
This is where science comes into play, as pressure sore mattresses have been designed to negate many physical issues that can disrupt your sleep. One of the most prominent is commonly referred to as “sleeping hot”, making for an extremely uncomfortable sleeping environment all year round.
Contemporary mattresses are generally manufactured using petroleum-based memory foam, which is ideal for optimizing physical comfort. This material is that its tighter closed-cell structure is known to trap heat by minimizing airflow, leaving people to feel as though they’re wedged and “stuck” to the heated foam.
Many manufacturers are now using plant-based or gel-infused memory foam to counter this issue, which does not retain heat and can actively allow for so-called “cool sleeping”.
At the same time, brands such as Ghostbed have integrated advanced and adaptive cooling technology into their products, creating a far more comfortable sleeping experience in the process. The most advanced form of cooling mattress technology for sleeping revolves around the development of specially designed memory foam, which optimizes the comfort of individuals in real-time.
This type of mattress also conforms to the unique shape of each sleeper, preventing long-term back or posture issues from developing over time. You can check the mattress comparison here.
The Last Word
Mattress technology has developed rapidly in recent times, with different types of memory foam being developed to optimize comfort and avoid heat retention.
The most exciting development in this space is the design of sensory cooling memory foam, which tackles a number of sleep and posture-related issues while preventing sleepers from overheating at any given time.
Make no mistake, choosing the right type of mattress is crucial to a healthy sleep cycle, particularly if you’re able to identify the issues that prevent you from enjoying a good nights’ sleep in the first place.