Is innerspring mattress good or bad for you? Many people prefer innerspring mattresses to foam mattresses. The options to an innerspring mattress are natural latex, polyurethane foam, and memory foam. So what are the benefits of innerspring mattresses and what are their disadvantages?
In discussing whether they are good or bad for you, we shall not be considering the cost. That has no bearing on their functionality or health issues.
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Here are some of the negative aspects of innerspring mattresses:
Disadvantages of Innerspring Mattresses
Weight Issues: They tend to be heavy due to their metal content and structure. This means that if you want to turn or flip them, you may be straining your lower back muscles among others. You could strain your back if you want to take them off the bed for airing.
Dust Mites: The layers of wool, foam and/or fiber create a perfect environment for dust mites. If you have an allergy, then an innerspring mattress might affect you badly. The risk is significantly reduced with regular cleaning. Foam mattresses can also provide a haven for dust mites, although innerspring mattresses tend to be worse.
Lack of Movement Separation: The movement of each partner affects the whole surface of the mattress. This is particularly true of individual open connected springs or continuous coil spring mattresses. Individually pocketed springs do allow a level of separation, but nowhere as good as memory foam mattresses.
Advantages of Innerspring Mattresses
- Established Technology: Innerspring mattresses have being available for a long time. During that time, they have been continually developed to offer maximum comfort. The spring coils have been developed as have the ways they are connected, or not connected in the case of pocketed coils. These developments have resulted in mattresses with excellent support for your major pressure points: shoulders, hips, and knees.
- Good Ventilation: because the space between the springs is hollow, the mattress is easily ventilated. They can therefore keep you cooler at night than regular foam or memory foam mattresses.
- High Durability: The steel springs used today are highly durable with a long lifetime. Innerspring mattresses maintain their shape and level of support longer than most foam mattresses. If they sag at all, that is more likely to be connected with the comfort layers than the spring structure. Innerspring mattresses today are built stronger than those available when your parents were your age.
- Firmness: If you need or like a firm bed, springs come in various strength levels. In many cases, an innerspring bed is a healthier option than a hard foam bed. They not only provide support, but also good springiness or bounce, and are therefore better than foam mattresses for adult activities. If you compare all of the above facts, you should be able to make your own decision between the foam and innerspring mattresses. If you need separation of movement of partners, then choose a pocketed coil spring mattress rather than a continuous coil or tied coil mattress. However, this is only part of the story.
- Aging: As they age, innerspring mattresses are not necessarily the most comfortable to sleep on. They tend to lose their support with age. Springs can lose their tension with long usage and lead to back pain and joint issues. Although the springs will still offer support for your body, they may do so unevenly. If you have had your mattress for around 7-8 years, you may find it sagging. Turning it or flipping it over might help. Foam mattress should last at least 9 –-10 years.
Are Innerspring Mattresses Good for You or Not?
Whether innerspring mattress are good for you or bad for you depends on two major factors: You yourself, and what is mean by ‘good’ and ‘bad’. Any mattress can be bad for you if it is badly made or too thin to bear your weight. The optimum mattress for a 112 lb woman will be very unlikely to be good for a man weighing 280 pounds. The same applies to foam mattresses.
Innerspring mattresses are comfortable when first used and offer good support for the average person. The greater the weight they have to bear, the sooner such mattresses will lose their support. So initially, spring mattresses are good for you. The higher the coil count, the better they are for spine and posture. There are three basic types of innersprings:
Open Coil Mattress
Open coils in particular provide excellent support due to their firmness, and many orthopedic mattresses are built on a central core of open springs. They support you better than pocketed springs. Many people find that an innerspring mattress consisting of open coils offers excellent and support. Add a memory foam topper to that, and you get excellent comfort and neck and lower back support.
However, not every mattress is perfect. An open coil innerspring mattress can tend to sag in the middle after prolonged use. Such mattresses can eventually roll partners together due to the central loss of support. That sag can waken one partner up when the other moves in the night to a more comfortable position.
Continuous Coil Mattress
A continuous coil is a spring system where all the coils and connections are made using one continuous length of wire. Every coil is effectively connected to all the rest, and when you lie on the mattress your weight is spread over all the coils. Some like this and find it comfortable.
However, it is not recommended for couples because when one moves the other will also move. There is less separation of movements with a continual coil spring system than with even the open coil spring system. If a heavy person lies beside a light person, the latter will be sleeping on a slope and will tend to roll towards the other.
Pocket Spring Mattress
A pocket spring mattress is good for people of different weights because the excessive compression by one will affect only the part of the mattress that person is lying on. Each individual spring is set in its own pocket. You compress only the springs in contact with your body. This is the closest an innerspring mattress can get to a memory foam mattress.
How Innerspring Mattresses Work
Innerspring mattresses support your weight because the springs push back against the weight compressing them. They push back with the same force your body is applying to them. Because different parts of body (e.g. shoulders and hips) put more pressure on the mattress than other parts, your body is supported unevenly. A memory foam mattress folds around your pressure points, providing even pressure all along you body.
However, by doing this, a memory foam mattress can prevent your body heat from dissipating during the night. You can become very warm when sleeping and wake up sweating. Some memory foams contain gel that absorbs the heat, but not all. Innerspring mattress allows more heat dissipation due to their central core of air.
Are Innerspring Mattresses Good or Bad for You: Conclusion
So, are innerspring mattresses good or bad for you? Our conclusion is that they are good for some but not for others. We cannot say that they are bad for you unless you have issues with your spine or lower back. Then a memory foam mattress may be better. In fact, you could combine the advantages of an innerspring with memory foam.
A layer of memory foam over an innerspring core could provide the firmness of the springs with the comfort of the memory foam. This would take pressure off your pressure points, support your neck and lower back (lumbar region) while providing the overall support provided by the innerspring core.
It’s All a Matter of Age: Of the Mattress, Not You!
An innerspring mattress with a suitable comfort layer on top is good for you until the comfort layer gives, or the springs lose strength. Then, they certainly can be bad for people who need good support for their spine in its natural curved position. However, if you change your mattress every 7-8 years, then the mattress should not harm you.
So, is an innerspring good or bad for you? It is generally good for you. It provides good support and springiness for those who like that. However, once the springs begin to lose their strength it can be bad for you if you have orthopedic issues. That said, the same is true for all mattresses: once they lose their support they can cause back and neck pain. That should not happen until after many years of use.
Thank you, that was very informative.