In your first few decades, you may be blissfully unaware of the amazing architecture of your back. You can lift, walk, dance or sleep without thinking much about that stack of disks and the extraordinary tube of nerves, your spinal cord. Your muscles may mutter now and then when you overdo it, but all in all, your back just quietly does its job.
Until it starts to shout.
Most people who have back pain first experience it between ages 30 and 40. Back pain is the most common type (27%) of pain, according to a recent National Institute of Health Statistics survey. And 20% of American adults (42 million) report that pain or discomfort disrupts their sleep a few nights a week or more. If your back pain is keeping you from deep, restorative sleep, you’re not one in a million, unfortunately–you’re one of millions.
Your Mattress Makes a Difference
A mattress that’s too hard, too soft, or made with cheap materials will keep you restless or awake, at a minimum. At a maximum, a pooped-out or poorly designed mattress will give you a brand new kind of pain. Even if you went to sleep pain free, a sag, gully, lump or uncomfortable surface will work on your muscles and nerves during the night…and you wake up with gnawing back pain.
Normally, morning “mattress back” is a result of muscle spasm. When muscles lock down, that’s your body’s instinctive way of “splinting” an irritated nerve. It can hurt like all heck, but will normally ease once you’re in motion during the day.
If the problem isn’t muscle related, but nerve pain—the type that results from a disk problem or old injury, for example—the wrong mattress surface doesn’t cause mere ache, it causes agony. When a disk or other structure is impinging on a nerve, it’s important that your spine be stable during the night. Otherwise, your vertebral disks can shift further out of position, and those nerves will let you know. If your mattress doesn’t support your body evenly or adequately, very strong pain is possible.
Another kind of back pain associated with the wrong mattress is soreness from pressure points. Without the right depth and type of cushioning in a mattress surface, tiny veins called capillaries will collapse. This causes soreness when blood rushes to try to restore circulation to the area. If you’re a back sleeper, your tailbone is the most common area for pressure-related back pain. That’s because there’s not much fat “padding” over this bony prominence to protect it.
Can a New Mattress Help?
Absolutely. A new mattress isn’t magic, but it can sure feel that way. Many types of back pain are directly relieved by sleeping on an intelligently designed mattress that takes into account your shape, weight, height, and sleeping position preferences, along with the particular kind of back pain that plagues you.
The Savvy Rest mattress design has brought back pain relief to more customers than we can count. Because it’s built in layers, allowing personalized combinations of cushioning and support, we can customize the mattress with your bad back in mind. The trick is to achieve the right balance between surface cushioning, or pressure relief, and spinal support.
You’ll find when you call Savvy Rest that we have some “nosy questions” – about your height, your weight, and whether you most often sleep on your back or your side. (If you say “my stomach” we may ask whether you have tried another position, as stomach sleeping can put additional strain on the back). And if you have back pain, we’d like to know if it’s just in the mornings, most of the time, and whether it’s related to a disk problem, simple over-exertion, or another cause, such as arthritis or fibromyalgia.
For back pain sufferers, a good night’s sleep is an important part of your effort to find relief. A back that can relax is a back that can begin to heal.
We don’t promise miracles, but we do promise your customized Savvy Rest will give you and your back a much better chance for the sleep you’ve been dreaming of…