Air Mattresses and Back Pain

Back pain is prevalent; more than 80% of Americans will experience an episode of lower back pain at some time in their lives. When it comes to managing your back pain and achieving sleep, the key is to achieve proper sleep posture. While some back conditions require specific positions, the general rule to follow is to (1) sleep on a mattress ranging from firm to medium firmness and (2) minimize any curvature in your spine. Successfully implementing these 2 rules is difficult on the average mattress because most mattresses are not built to provide proper support.

Why Foam & Spring Mattresses Don’t Help Back Pain

When a mattress is too firm for your body, it will repel against you. There isn’t enough give in places where your weight is heavier, resulting with your body uncomfortably pushed upwards in those places. When a mattress is too soft, the heaviest parts of your body will sag and again, discomfort ensues. When you buy a mattress that has a single “setting”: extra firm, firm, medium, soft, you’re only addressing the heaviest part of your body. But the reality is, in order to minimize your spine’s curvature (crucial rule #2), your bed must respond to each body segment’s weight and support needs. Do you find yourself tossing and turning in bed throughout the night? Do you wake up with a stiff back, are you having to stretch in the morning to loosen yourself up? If you answered, “yes”, then your mattress is not only not helping you get the sleep you desperately need for bodily recovery, it’s also causing or furthering your back pain.

How Using an Air Mattress Relieves Back Pain

Your body’s weight is classified in 3 segments:

• Head- accounting for both your neck and shoulders
• Lumbar- the heaviest part of your body, back and hips
• Foot- thighs, knees, and feet

The best mattress for back pain must be able to accommodate the unique needs of each body segment. Night Air® mattresses are the only mattresses on the market that allow you to assign a precise level of firmness for each body segment! Night Air® technology exceeds Sleep Number® beds, which only permit a single air setting assignment to apply to the entire body. This restriction is a major disadvantage for back pain sufferers who require the ability to adjust their lumbar support. Firmness settings must be set to a specific point of alignment with the neck and hips, thus achieving rule #2’s minimized spine curvature, hooray! Your sleep is essential to the body’s ability to recover. By getting an air mattress that will improve your body’s alignment and facilitate better sleep, it will deliver back-pain relief.

No More Waking Your Partner Tossing & Turning from Back Pain

With our 6-chamber air bed, you and your partner can customize your respective side of the bed, thoroughly accommodating your individual comfort needs. And when we say individual, do we mean it! Where we, again, exceed Sleep Number®, is with how precise your air bed settings can set. Sleep Number® beds air settings are adjusted in increments of 5, vs. Night Air® mattresses, which are adjustable in single digit increments from 1 – 100, providing more options and more individualized control. The advantages to Night Air® don’t end there, check out our Sleep Number® comparison page for a full list of our sleep system wins.