Determining Your Personal Statistics
While pressure relief and spinal alignment are the two most important functions of a mattress and make up perhaps 80% of what makes a perfect mattress, your own unique needs, sensitivities, and how you are put together will make a big difference in the materials and construction that is most suitable for you. Individual preferences in overall feel such as the "liveliness" of your mattress, other elements of a mattress that contribute to overall comfort and sleeping satisfaction such as temperature regulation, and movement isolation, and more subjective considerations such as the choice between natural and synthetic materials, and how a mattress looks, and even how different materials react to the "other" activities that take place on a mattress can make be the difference between buying a "good" mattress and buying a "great" mattress and in your overall satisfaction with the mattress you choose. It is also important to know what types of materials can be reasonably expected to be available in each budget range as most of us of course want the "best" for the "least".
Factors regarding your personal statistics when choosing a mattress may include:
Objective and subjective preferences.
Some of these factors such as your personal statistics and your sleeping positions are more "objective" in their effect on your choices and can play a very important role in your choice of materials and construction. These are easier to test when you are lying on mattresses. Your more subjective preferences though, especially those that are not so easy to remember or determine in a store environment, should also be known ahead of time and included in your choices as they are an important part of long term satisfaction with your mattress. In some cases, in an effort to make a sale, there may be attempts to persuade you that these choices are not so "critical" and it is important to make sure that you are not somehow convinced along the way that they are not so important after all or that you will "get used" to a mattress that doesn't include them. Your subjective preferences are never right or wrong and can be accommodated, though sometimes to differing degrees, at any budget level.
In the pages of this section we will explore these more personal and/or subjective considerations which can help you personalize a mattress and make it perfect just for you.
As always, we welcome questions and comments on our forum.