Your mattress is started to make weird creaking sounds, even though you thought only the bed was supposed to creak. The springs are starting to dig into your back. There’s a hole in your water bed and your beautiful carpet is getting ruined. Whatever the reason, you need a new mattress. And if you’re not in immediate need of a new mattress or bed, don’t assume you can just ignore this article and close it. You will definitely need to buy a new mattress at some point in your life! Sleeping on the same mattress for too long can have negative effects on your health and your comfort, so cross that idea off right now.
Buying a new mattress seems pretty easy at first. Just walk to your nearest bed retailer and spend a few minutes on a mattress. Get some advice from the nice sales assistants at the store. If you like what you feel and what you hear, then it makes sense to just buy that mattress. Take it home and enjoy. Problem solved. You’ll forget you ever even had a mattress problem in the first place.
Well, spoiler alert: buying a new mattress isn’t anywhere near as easy as it’s sometimes made out to be. Here are some of the reasons people end up having a much harder time buying a mattress than they anticipated.
The mattress salesperson is not a sleep guru
It stands to reason that the person selling you the mattress must know what they’re talking about, right? They’ve guided you over to the most expensive mattress in the store and told you that you’re guaranteed the best sleep possible on this one. Why would someone working in a bed store not know what they’re talking about when it comes to sleep? You’ve gotta put your trust in them, right?
Wrong. Everyone sleeps in a different way. You probably already know that the way you sleep is different to the way your partners or your friends sleep, right? Apply that logic to this situation. No one mattress can guarantee everyone the best sleep. Your partner might have the best sleep on it. You might not. And while we’re on this subject, let’s kill one a myth right now. A higher price does not necessarily mean higher quality. This is for the same reasons that have been stated above. Remember that a sales assistant at a bed retailer will get a commission when they sell a bed to you. And the higher the price, the more they’ll get. So just keep that in mind when they try to point you to that $1.6 million magnetic floating bed.
There are a lot of mattress types
What kind of mattress do you want? A comfortable one, eh? Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as that. There are spring mattresses, memory foam mattresses, latex mattresses and more. Then there are different spring types, different foam types, different latex types. Then there are firmness levels. Firm? Ultra firm? Soft? Medium soft? Soft medium? Ultra soft?
It can be a little dizzying when you realise how much variety there is in the world of mattresses. What you should do is recognise this as a good thing. After all, and as I’ve already pointed out, there are billions of human beings, all with their own unique sleeping behaviour. All with their own comfort wants. All with their specific ailments that can disturb their sleep. As long as you think carefully on how to choose the best mattress, you’ll get the one that’s right for you.
It’s impossible to test a mattress properly in-store
I’m going to go back to the beginning of this article where I referred to testing a mattress in-store. Sure, a mattress might feel really comfortable when you first lie on it. It may start to feel even more luxurious over the few minutes that you’re spending on it. But that’s all the time you’re getting on it: a few minutes. Even if you tip the sales assistant a ridiculous amount to let you sleep on one for a few hours, this still isn’t an adequate test. (Don’t actually try that, by the way. They’ll probably just get security to escort you from the premises.)
Ask the retailer about getting a trial period. You may even be able to get a trial period directly from the manufacturer. This will allow you use the mattress for two to four weeks in order to assess its long-term suitability. This service can sometimes be inexpensive, but it’s rarely ever free. In fact, some manufacturers might charge you an absolute bomb to send the mattress back to them. But hey, at least in that scenario you didn’t spend the total amount for a mattress you ended up hating!
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