Buying a mattress can be very tricky. ‘Is it going to be comfortable enough in the long run? Will it provide even support for my whole body? Will it suit my personal needs?’ You try it in the showroom and pretend to sleep, wondering whether it’ll give you a good night’s sleep at home.

The benefits of sleeping on a relatively firm mattress

Sleeping on a medium-firm or firm mattress has many benefits that might not be widely known to the average person.  First and foremost, it promotes natural spinal alignment. By this means, it helps relieve back pain, since it maintains the spine in a natural position. Adding to that, this type of mattress evenly distributes the body’s weight keeping the hips properly supported. A firm(er) mattress provides superior support that helps stabilize your body. The overall sturdiness of this kind of mattress means it has improved edge support allowing you to sit on the edge of the bed. I guess no one likes to be woken up by literally falling out of bed each and every morning... With a firmer mattress there’s no such problem. Not to mention its ability of isolating motion. Thanks to its harder texture, a firmer mattress responds less to movement, so it is ideal for those sleeping with a partner or a pet.

For whom is a firm(er) mattress recommended?

A firm(er) mattress is strongly recommended for people struggling with back pain. Back sleepers need a mattress that keeps their spine aligned with its natural curve all throughout the night. Owing to the support provided by a firmer mattress, the sleeper suffering from back pain will experience a significant improvement in their quality of sleep. Not only is it beneficial for people who sleep on their backs or people with bad backs, but for those sleeping on their stomachs. Stomach sleepers also need a mattress with enough support to keep their stomach from sinking into the mattress. Luckily, a firm mattress will most definitely provide optimum support for all types of sleepers, not only for people with special needs, since it props up the entire body in full length.

How do you determine the firmness of a mattress?

Mattress firmness might be considered relative, but to rule out possible misunderstandings, mattress companies came up with a firmness scale. On this scale 1 means the softest and 10 the firmest. On average a medium-firm mattress typically falls between a 5 and a 7. Any mattress rating above this level is considered firm. However, experts recommend going no further than an 8 on the firmness scale in order to have the ideal balance between comfort and support.  Did you know that the firmness of the mattress doesn’t equal with the support of the mattress? Actually, the firmness of a mattress is defined by the top layer and the support of a mattress is determined by the layers underneath i.e. middle and bottom layer. (Click here to check out how a Milam mattress is constructed layer by layer.) There’s another way to measure the firmness of a mattress, namely relying on the ILD (Indentation Load Deflection) rating. When shopping for a medium firm mattress the ILD number should be somewhere between 29 and 31.

Conclusion

As stated above, a firmer mattress can largely improve your sleeping quality whether you’re a back sleeper or stomach sleeper or whether you have restless nights because of your partner’s movement or if you suffer from intense back ache. We hope you have the information you need in order to make the best decision possible when shopping for a mattress. Happy mattress hunting!

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