Why Bending Your Mattress Can Change Your Life

One of the “newest” options you see when you start your shopping adventure for a new mattress is the Power Base (often called Adjustable Base or Adjustable Bed Frame).  At first sight, they remind you of the hospital bed, and your mind relates to them that way for the remainder of your shopping quest UNLESS you are lucky enough to be dealing with a sleep consultant and avoid a salesperson.  A sleep consultant can tell you why a Power Base will help you, and how not only will your sleep health increase but also your back and respiration will be better.  A consultant will also explain how other health ailments can be overcome just by adjusting your sleep angle.

BUT, let’s say you weren’t lucky enough to find someone find someone with real knowledge during your mattress shopping quest. What are you to do?! Well, read on! We’ll help you discover the wonderful reason why bending your mattress will help you live well.

Hospital Bed vs. Power Base

Your mind automatically says “Why do people want a hospital bed in their house?” or “What a waste of money, isn’t your mattress supposed to be comfortable enough already?”.  Both of these are questions we at Sleep Well face daily.  These are more than fair questions if you aren’t in the business of selling sleep systems and you haven’t been exposed to any of the advancements made to help you sleep better.

A hospital bed brings up images of being sick, being old, and other negative related thoughts.  Hospital beds are utilitarian, they are plastic coated mattresses with hardly any comfort and bend at weird angles so you can sit up and eat in bed or get pricked by needles at an angle you really don’t want to be at.

Power bases are comfort tools at the on the opposite end of the spectrum.  Yes, your mattress is super comfortable as is, and Yes you can put as many pillows underneath you as possible to sit at an angle to read or watch TV in bed, BUT what if you could sit up without having to lump ten pillows under you?  What if you could position your back to be comfortable enough to rest your spine into position?  A power base can do that.  Power bases raise your head and your feet to positions designed to help alleviate your pains, help you lay back in comfort while reading or watching TV, and help you breath easier.

Reading/Watching TV in Bed

Let me start with a disclaimer: You shouldn’t watch TV in bed.

Ok, so now let me tell you how a Power Base makes it comfortable to watch TV in bed or better yet, read in bed.

By raising the head and back on a Power Base, you can make yourself so much more comfortable than by using pillow after pillow for support.  Your entire mattress raises with you, supporting you and keeping your back from bending in weird positions.  A big plus is you can repeat this position over and over again, not like pillows where you are lucky once in a while to get the position perfect, more times than not you always feel that random pillow is out of position and you can’t get it right regardless of repositioning.

Another plus to think about in this position is the ability to have your legs bent too.  Your Power Base can raise the legs to a comfortable position so your back muscles and spine don’t feel stretched out of place.  You can accomplish this so much easier with a base than you can with two pillows under your knees, trust me, I’ve tried.

Back Relief & Waking Up with Your Hips in Place

I have terrible hips.  My hip bone just randomly rotates out of place and causes a lot of discomfort and pain.  In my experience, I can set my Adjustable Base to a Zero Gravity position for a couple of hours of sleep, and I will wake up with my hip right back to where it should be.  It’s important to note that I am not saying this will work for everyone.  I am saying that this is how it works for me and many others.

Zero Gravity is a position achievable with Adjustable Bases in which your legs are raised high enough to relieve tension on your hip muscles and lower back.  Your head is then raised in a position slightly higher than your heart.  Once you are in that position you almost feel weightless, hence the name, Zero Gravity.

Zero Gravity allows for your muscles to rest and your spine to stretch somewhat.  The feeling is one of a kind.  It sounds like an awkward sleep position, but once you’ve tried it, you will see that rest comes instantly.  There have been more than a few times I have made it through the entire night in this position.  The feeling you get when you stay in Zero Gravity for a few hours is rejuvenation.  Your spine feels less compressed, and you will notice you’re feeling taller (No exaggeration, we have had more than a few customers tell us they have to adjust their vehicle rearview mirrors due to the decompression they experience).

Zero Gravity is not the only position in which a Power Base can help you.  If you are used to sleeping with pillows under your knees for support, your base could do that.  If you sleep with multiple pillows under your head for neck support, your base can do that too.  The possible positions are endless.

What Health Ailments Can an Adjustable Base Help?

This is where you separate the consultants from the salespeople.  Any salesperson can tell you about Zero Gravity. Heck, it’s a button on most remotes!  The real consultation happens when your consultant can ask you about ailments like acid reflux, blood pressure issues, breathing problems, and that consultant can tell you how a Power Base can help.  It’s important to add here that this is NOT a diagnosis, NOT a prescription, BUT a relief mechanism that can help those seeking comfort. 

Acid reflux can be helped by raising the sleep angle of head and torso.  By raising your torso and head you are helping reduce the influence of gravity on your acid reflux issue.  In essence, you are sitting up higher so that the acid doesn’t come up as much as it would in a prone position.

Blood flow is another issue we have had many customers come in and seek a power base for.  The theory here is that by increasing the angle of legs to your heart, your blood will make it to your head a lot easier.  By raising your legs a few inches higher than the level of your heart, less blood will “pool” in your leg area, and it will flow freer to your head and arms.  The opposite can help as well, by raising your head above your heart, you will achieve a drop in pressure in which you’ll immediately feel less pressure in your ears and rest easier.

Several other ailments are helped out by repositioning your head and legs during sleep.  It’s best to research and see what is said about any discomforts you may have.  See if this will help your individual circumstance.

Snoring

Snoring is the single biggest reason people come to Sleep Well for a Power Base.  Nothing else even comes remotely close.

Because a Power Base can comfortably raise your head it can, within reason, quiet snoring.  There has to be a line drawn here, a Power Base does not, will not, can not, eliminate snoring.  That is a myth.  A Power Base can help quiet snoring.

First, let’s examine what causes snoring.  In most cases, snoring is caused by a relaxation of the muscles in your throat. Once relaxed those muscles then obstruct your breathing.  The obstruction then causes a flapping noise (snoring sound) as air is forced in and out of the throat while you breathe.

A Power Base helps you by raising the angle of your head.  Using gravity to pull the relaxed muscle obstruction in a direction other than straight down into your airway.  This is the crucial reason that I warn that Power Bases will not stop snoring but quiet it.  Your muscles are still relaxed, your muscles are still blocking some of that airway.  Depending on the severity of your breathing issue your snoring is stopped, or it is quieted by several octaves (exaggeration on octaves, but it feels like it, right?).

You’ve seen commercials of a person start to snore and the partner simply raises the head several inches and the snoring stops? That’s really how it could work.  Raise the head, muscles are redirected, and snoring quiets (some).

More Reasons to Consider a Power Base

There are plenty more reasons for considering a Power Base during your mattress shopping adventure.  Comfort, Massage, Back Relief/Stretching, are just a few others.  The important part though is to remain open to the possibility that there is more to your sleep than just a new mattress.  You can add a whole new level of comfort and back pain relief with a Power Base.

If you have other reasons why you love your Power Base or suggestions to why someone should consider one, please feel free to comment below.