Anyone who’s gone through the slog of looking for the best mattress for their back pain knows that it can be a Goldilocks-esque process: You don’t want your new mattress to be too soft or too firm—it needs to be just right. And that’s only after you’ve made sure that everything else about your sleeping setup isn’t going to exacerbate your discomfort.
Namely, if you deal with chronic back pain, you should make sure your pillow isn’t too tall or too low for you, and that your sleep position encourages spinal alignment, George Cyril, MD, FAAPMR, tells SELF. Using a pillow that’s too tall can crank your neck forward, while sleeping on your stomach leads your neck to stay twisted to one side all night, he explains. If your spine, shoulders, and neck aren’t in a neutral position while you sleep, you’re more likely to wake up with soreness and that dreaded “kink” in your neck.
Those contributing factors aside, the type of mattress you sleep on will make the biggest difference in your back problems and, as a result, your sleep quality as a whole. Specifically, you want to look at the mattress’ firmness level, Steve Zhou, MD, tells SELF. He explains that it should provide enough support that you don’t sink into the bed, but it shouldn’t be so hard that you develop uncomfortable pressure points: “The right mattress should make you feel like you are floating on air.” Very generally speaking, this usually means a medium-firm mattress for side sleepers, a firm mattress for stomach sleepers, and a firmer mattress for back sleepers, too, Gerard Girasole, MD, tells SELF. (If a mattress ever feels too firm, just add one of these bestselling mattress toppers.)
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The materials in your new bed can give you better idea of its cushioning and firmness. Both Dr. Cyril and Dr. Girasole say innerspring mattresses and ones constructed with pocketed coils will have a different feel from solid foam beds. Where a mattress with an innerspring layer is built for overall firmness and support, a pocket coil mattress will contour to your body’s shape in order to provide further pressure relief. A memory foam mattress will feel like the far softer mattress by comparison. This is why many high-quality mattress brands offer hybrid mattresses, which contain both coils and layers of memory foam.
These general recommendations should help back pain sufferers narrow down their search, but mattress shopping is, ultimately, a matter of personal preference. So, even with these guidelines in mind, you may have to test drive a few mattresses before you find the one that gives you the back pain relief you crave. Luckily, major manufacturers like Casper, Purple, Helix, and more offer generous trial periods to do just that. Below, we’ve gotten the ball rolling for you and highlighted some of the most supportive mattresses on the market right now, in the hopes that you’ll find the best mattress for your back pain and, one morning, wake up pain-free.
Source: SELF
