There’s nothing as comfortable and peaceful as sleeping or resting on a good mattress. It relaxes your nerves and muscles, keeping you fresh and active for the next day.
Using a bad mattress will not only bring discomfort but also restlessness and difficulty in falling asleep. Such a mattress will invariably cause you to wake severally throughout the night. The impact will affect your health both physically and mentally.
This article will deal with the question, can a bad mattress cause restless sleep. Also, you will learn the signs of a bad mattress, how sleeping on a bad mattress can affect your health and others. Just read to the end for great insights.
Can a Bad Mattress Cause Restless Sleep?
A good mattress plays a vital role in enabling you to rest and sleep peacefully. When the mattress is faulty or bad, it impacts negatively on your body though you might be unconscious laying on it. You shouldn’t be surprised to discover that your mattress can have a dramatic effect on you.
Using a bad mattress can be very devastating to your body. It keeps sleep away from you, making you restless throughout the night. Such impacts linger even after dawn. That’s why you stand at the risk of short-term to long-term effects of using a bad mattress.
It’s not enough to wonder, can a bad mattress cause restless sleep? The effects of a bad mattress go beyond restlessness to memory issues, high blood pressure, obesity, cardiovascular disease, and others.
What are Signs of a Bad Mattress?
Most times, the signs of a bad mattress are not too prominent. However, the following experiences can serve as indications that you’ve got a bad mattress. They come as warning signs that you should go for a new and good mattress for restless sleepers.
1. Inadequate Sleep
Not getting enough sleep for a night or two in a long while may not raise eyebrows or cause much alarm. When you discover that you’re consistently having difficulty sleeping no matter what you do, then something is wrong.
A bad mattress will keep you restless, taking away sleep from your eyes. Also, you’ll experience multiple waking in short time intervals, turning, and tossing within the night due to the effect of the bad mattress.
2. Age of the Mattress
The age of your mattress could be a determining factor for you to opt for a new mattress. The general consensus from mattress manufacturers demands a replacement within eight to ten years of usage.
There’s the belief that the longer you use a mattress, the faster it sags and becomes bad. This will increase the effect of restlessness you will get while using the mattress.
3. Body Aches and Pains
Sleeping on a comfortable mattress is supposed to relax and smoothen your muscles and nerve, keeping you refreshed the next day. However, a faulty mattress will lose its supportive hold and firm, causing your body to slump as you lay on it. This will build pressure on your body by stiffening your muscles and nerves. Hence you’ll experience pains and aches.
4. Mattress Deformation
When your mattress loses its firm and support, it will sag. Such deformation may no longer hold your weight. So, you will always be restless trying to sleep with such a mattress.
5. Dust Mites and Allergies
Once your bedroom temperature becomes conducive for breeding dust mites, they can quickly multiply in millions. As they feed on your dead skin, they will excrete on your mattress. You can get allergies, skin rashes, asthma, running nose, and other effects by sleeping on the excretes.
Allergen usually builds up in worn mattresses where it’s easy for mold, mildew, and others to grow. Using mattress support that allows airflow at the bottom of the mattress will go a long in controlling such buildup. Alternatively, you should go for a new mattress.
How Does Sleeping on a Bad Mattress Affect Your Health?
It’s always easy to notice the effects of not getting good sleep through the night as you wake the next day. Using a bad mattress will frustrate you from the continuous tossing and turning to restlessness through the night.
Lack of sleep from using a bad mattress will affect your health both in the short-term and long term. Here are some of the health effects of sleeping on a bad mattress.
1. Memory problems
Good sleep is a necessary tool that helps in creating and building memories. Without adequate sleep, you may have difficulty retaining and recalling memories.
So, using a bad mattress, which results in restless sleep, creates a fast route for your memories to fade. On the other hand, good sleep will help your brain to store information from the day, keeping it handy for easy access. This’s what helps you to retain and recall events and information.
2. Obesity
As weird as it may sound, lack of sleep creates room for weight gain. When you’re not getting enough sleep, your body system becomes stressed and distorted. This will slow down your metabolism and build up more fat in the day.
Also, sleep deprivation alters your hunger levels. This is because sleep controls the two main hormones, Leptin and Ghrelin, which are responsible for appetite regulation. While Leptin regulates and works to keep you filled, Ghrelin works to make you hungry. Usually, sleep increases Leptin and decreases Ghrelin. However, using a bad mattress and getting restless will change the hormone levels making you feel more hungry. Thus, your stand the chance of being overweight.
3. Drowsiness
Drowsiness and tiredness are the first pronounced effects you’ll get from lack of sleep. A bad mattress that takes away your sleep will cause you to feel down. It’s usually very awkward to start feeling drowsy from early in the morning. This could ruin your entire day just from lack of sleep from a bad mattress.
4. Weak Immune System
Without enough sleep, your body will slow down in its metabolic processes. This, in turn, weakens your system. Thus, you have high chance of falling sick when you’re sleeping less than you ought to.
5. Respiratory Problems
If your mattress is old, you can have dust mites in it. These creatures, which multiply rapidly, produce adverse effects on the respiratory system. Thus, they can cause asthma, sore throat, and others.
6. Cardiac Problems
When your bad mattress hinders you from getting enough sleep, you’ll become exposed to hypertension. This’s one of the major contributory conditions for cardiac problems. Health reviews always associate short sleepers with cardiovascular diseases. Also, lack of sleep from a faulty mattress is a trigger for stroke and high blood pressure.
Can You Fix a Bad Mattress?
The effects of a bad mattress are quite numerous. Though getting a new mattress may be the best option, there could be financial constraints that may hinder you from that.
However, you can improve your bad mattress using the following steps:
Rotate your mattress:
When you keep sleeping on the mattress from the same position head to feet, the weight of your body can dip it. Therefore, you should consider rotating the mattress to avoid a continuous sagging of one position on the mattress.
Add a mattress topper:
You can add a mattress topper to level up deformation and sags on your bad mattress. This will provide more cushion and reduce the pressure that comes through the deformation. Also, you will reduce aches and pains from using the mattress and can get enough sleep.
Use a mattress cover:
Using a mattress cover wades off the impacts of dust mites and allergen that built up in your mattress. The waterproof cover types will give you’re a better result. It will prevent the presence of moisture that aims their growth and reproduction.
Add more pillows:
Using or adding a pillow can help you to overcome the effects of a bad mattress. You can place a place to any spot that you feel is dipping on your mattress. This will help to provide more cushion and support for your body. So, you can relax and get enough sleep.
How to Choose Mattress for Restless Sleepers?
You’ll need to consider some factors when choosing a mattress for restless sleepers. Some of these factors include:
- Type: The type of mattress for a restless sleeper should be comfortable on the body. The ideal types are foam and latex due to their cradling effects.
- Firmness: There are different levels of firmness that suitable different people. Understand if your body needs just the normal firm or extra firm material for support in the night.
- Size: Some people will turn around more often in their sleep than others. For such individuals, you can consider getting a mattress that is larger to create more room for them.
Final Words
If you’re wondering can a bad mattress cause restless sleep, the fact is that it can. So when you can’t get enough sleep or keep turning and tossing the entire night, you could be using a bad mattress.
The health challenges from lack of sleep on a bad mattress include aches and pains, respiratory problems, drowsiness, and others. However, you can fix your bad mattress by adding a mattress topper, pillows and using a mattress cover.
