Fine-tuning Our SleepEZ 10000

[phoenix]

Hi LEW,

I think I had an aha moment this morning while wondering why I am so sensitive to my hips sinking in despite not being heavy in that region. I am sure you have covered this somewhere on your website, but here is my take: Most people who carry a lot of weight in their hips are also broad in the hips. They are starting with that part of their spine elevated. I am slender in the hips, so my hips start lower. I came up with the support configuration through trial and error as the old mattress aged. Essentially I built a wedge, thickest under my hips and tapering up to my mid back. I realize that that is my build: a wedge with broad shoulders and narrow hips. Does it make sense that this would make me sensitive to compression in the hip area, and that a wedge running the other way would feel good.?

This makes perfect sense to me and it’s impressive that you’ve come to recognize this. Relationship between body mass in each area of the body, the surface area of that part of the body (which changes as you sink in deeper), and the shape of that part of the body (not to mention each person’s sensitivity to alignment and pressure issues) is extremely variable with each person and is a big part of why there is no formula that can truly predict how well each person will react to a specific type of mattress. I have talked about this in quite a number of posts including here and here and here as well as in much more technical detail here.

There is also a further complication which is that the hips/pelvis are generally narrower than the shoulders so if you imagine floating in the air in perfect alignment in a side sleeping position and sinking down then the shoulders will come into contact with the mattress first and need to sink in to some degree before the hips will even contact the mattress surface. You can read more about this here.

Anyway, I stopped at My Sleep Nation on the way home from my chiropractor (he told me, without prompting that my pelvis was tilted). I had tried to find this store a few weeks ago, but their website was down and all my searches lead me to the dead link and didn’t give a phone number. I thought they were out of business. I tried several mattresses and the one I liked best was a house brand that is made of two layers of latex, 6 inches each, with a cotton cover. The top layer is supposed to be 30ish ILD and the bottom layer is 42-44 ILD. You would think this would be awfully firm, but it felt both pressure relieving and supportive. I do need a lot of pressure relief for my banged up shoulders and am surprised that this firm a mattress seemed okay, at least for 10 minutes or so.

It can often be surprising how certain combinations work for different people. The 30 ILD would be in the range of medium vs soft but once again surface area, body shape, and individual sensitivities … and mattress and layer thickness … can play a big role. I would also suggest spending at least 15 minutes … after you are fully relaxed … testing all your normal sleeping positions when you are testing a mattress. The closer you can simulate the pre-sleep state when your muscles have let go the more you will be able to detect the more subtle cues that come from the mattress and from your body.

I am surprised at the layering approach, both in the thickness of the layers and the firmness. I am inclined to trust my feel over numbers, but given a $3300 list for mattress alone it seems like an unnecessarily thick mattress. He does have one in stock that has a cover with older cosmetics and I can get that for about $2400…

Mattress thickness can play a significant role in the softness and response of a mattress. Thicker layers have a greater range of compression and become firmer more slowly than thinner mattresses. Thicker mattresses can also “get away” with firmer layering because thickness and softness work hand in hand. You can read more about this in post #14 here. Of course mattresses that use thicker layers of more expensive materials are also more costly. I would also trust your “feel” over numbers but it’s also nice to know that what you are feeling has a basis behind it

I am going to call Rocky Mountain Mattress and Sleep Ez before doing anything. Having options in layering, and the ability to replace worn out layers are nice benefits to SleepEz, while RMM is supposed to have firmer foam in the hip area of the support layer. I don’t mind paying more to buy from a local merchant who has beds I can “demo”, but there isn’t much I can do to change the bed down the road if it doesn’t work out. Do you have any feedback or suggestions on these options?

I would always trust your actual experiences over any “theory” for all the reasons that we’ve talked about in this post. There are certainly benefits to a layered approach that can be exchanged though but it all depends on your level of confidence in the suitability of what you are buying. Your testing experiences will certainly be valuable in any discussions about your choices. I tend to speak to quality and value and leave the design and layering options to more detailed conversations between you and each manufacturer but all the online options you are considering are good ones from a quality/value perspective and the choice between them would be based on your own personal value equation and the importance of the different features, benefits, and options that each offers before, during, and after the sale.

If you decide to go with SleepEZ, if you could test the Savvy Rest locally, they are very similar.

This is a very good suggestion (thanks Sleepy1 :)). they also have 9 and 12" versions that can “approximate” the layering at Sleep Nation and at SleepEz.

PS I just got off the phone with Shawn. The zoned support layer is special order. It is firmer on the shoulder as well as hip area so it might not be right for me. He didn’t sound excited about it. He suggested S/M/F for me, which is what I would have guessed.

Are you sure that the shoulder area is firmer (my understanding is that its softer)? I know from my conversations with Shawn that he is a big believer in the value of non zoned latex which works to adapt to different body shapes with it’s natural compression modulus (support factor) rather than different zones. In most cases … zoned latex has a rather small differential between the zones anyway which may be less than the natural variations in the latex itself … especially with Dunlop latex. In other cases the zones can even be counter productive if the difference in soft and firm is in the wrong areas. I personally prefer 2 or 3 zone approaches except in more unusual cases where “reverse zoning” (zoning that “allows” the hips/pelvis and increases firmness under the lumbar curve rather than stops them) may be appropriate.

I’ve linked lots of information here but I would focus on careful testing to establish the design that is best for you rather than theory because you body will “bypass” all the theory if you allow it to completely relax, wear thin and “non interfering” loose clothing, spend enough time on each mattress, and “listen” very carefully to the more subtle messages you get from your body.

Phoenix