Everyone wants to know: What's the most comfortable mattress?
There's good reason to want to know the answer. An uncomfortable mattress can bring misery and long, sleepless nights. A comfortable mattress, by contrast, can bring years of blissful and rejuvenating slumber.
The answer largely depends on each person's personal preferences. In other words, it's unlikely that one mattress would be comfortable for everyone.
As a group, however, people tend to find some mattresses more comfortable than others.
How do I know this? My research team has spent hundreds of hours scouring through dozens of online message boards collecting data from thousands of people about what they think of their mattresses.
The results are interesting and may not be what you expect.
According to the research results as of early 2008, let's look at how popular mattresses rank in terms of comfort, counting down from number 10. (The type of mattress is indicated in the parentheses.)
10. Simmons Beautyrest (innerspring) -- This mattress, like all of the innerspring mattresses included in the research, did not score very well compared to other types of mattresses. This is mainly because many owners, according to the data, indicated that the bed had premature sagging. Premature sagging is loss of support to a degree that notably lessens the comfort of the mattress and takes place within three years of purchase.
9. Serta (innerspring) -- Like the other innerspring mattresses, it did not score highly because of premature sagging.
8. Kingsdown (innerspring) -- Like the other innerspring mattresses, it too did not score highly because of premature sagging.
7. Sealy Posturepedic (innerspring) -- This mattress had the highest comfort rating among innerspring mattresses and had the fewest reports of premature sagging among innersprings.
6. Tempur-pedic (memory foam) -- All of the memory foam mattresses in the research scored well, including this mattress. However, some of its owners said that its comfort was undermined by premature sagging and retention of body heat.
5. Sleep Number (air bed) -- This mattress, the research found, generally has owners who either passionately love the bed (the majority) or passionately hate the bed.
4. Novaform (memory foam) -- This mattress was rated by the clear majority of its owners to be comfortable as well as affordable. However, it did have problems that were similar to those of Tempur-pedic.
3. Waterbed -- Although waterbeds are currently not as popular as memory foam and air mattresses, the clear majority of waterbed owners liked the comfort of their bed, as well as the durability.
2. Comfortaire (air bed) -- The vast majority of Comfortaire mattress owners found it to be comfortable and durable.
1. Bergad / Isoform (memory foam) -- Over 90% of the owners of this mattress found it comfortable and generally without some of the issues that the other memory foam mattresses had.
