If you’re willing to spend a little extra money on a car for safety purposes, or a mobile device that provides a better user experience, try implementing that same logic when you’re buying a new mattress. An expensive mattress is a personal investment and may be the difference between 7 hours of rejuvenating sleep or 7 hours of tireless tossing and turning.
Sleep plays an essential role in maintaining both our mental and physical health and how we function during our day-to-day. You might be surprised to learn how much of a positive impact a high-quality mattress can make on your sleep. Poor mattresses, especially older ones, are one of the major culprits of back pain, aching joints, insomnia, and other negative health conditions that take away from your quality of sleep.
It goes to show with the online mattress industry, though, you don’t have to fork out thousands of dollars for a quality bed. With their direct-to-consumer business model, a.k.a. cutting out the middle-man, brands are able to manufacture quality beds of their own and sell them online without the extra costs of owning/selling in a storefront.
The key is to find a great mattress for the price, and you’ll be getting your money’s worth in no time instead of an expensive mattress. As that old saying goes, you get what you pay for. Here are a few reasons why you should consider paying the extra money for a more expensive mattress.
1.) Higher Productivity And Pay
What if there was a way to increase your finances without doing anything but sleep more? According to different studies, a healthy amount of quality sleep could ultimately pan out to a more productive work ethic and more money in your bank account. In a study published by the National Institute of Health, researchers found that participants who received 7-8 hours of sleep were 29% more productive than people who slept 4 hours or less, and 19% more productive than those who slept 5-6 hours.
Naturally, more productivity leads to more money and recognition from your supervisors. In fact, one study showed that individuals who slept an hour longer saw a 1.5% increase in salary in the short term and 4.9% in the long term.
2.) Allow Your Muscles To Repair And Recover
If you’re missing out on sleep because of your mattress, especially significant amounts of sleep, it can be bad news for your physical health. Our bodies go through two different phases of sleep, one is REM (rapid eye movement) and the other is non-REM. During non-REM sleep, your body is helping to repair, build, and maintain your muscle tissue.
This process is especially essential for elder folks in order to prevent/slow the natural decline of muscle mass as you age, or individuals looking to gain a bit more muscle mass.
3.) Strengthen Your Immune System
Ever wonder why a doctor prescribes lots of sleep when you’re feeling sick? A full 7-9 hours of sleep can help strengthen your immune system and help fight off infections when you do get sick. Researchers from Germany’s University of Tübingen discovered that a full night’s sleep increases the strength of T-cells, which are cells in the body that help boost your immune system.
It goes even farther than that, though, as sleep has been also known to help reduce inflammation which can help with conditions like arthritis, and can even lower your odds for heart disease and stroke.
4.) Improve Your Mood
This is something you’re probably already familiar with, as almost everyone is more irritable and cranky after receiving poor sleep. A study by the University of Pennsylvania found that research volunteers who slept four ½ hours a night claimed to feel stressed, angry, sad, and mentally drained.
Once they got back on a regular 7-9 hour sleeping schedule, though, they reported a drastic improvement in how they were feeling. In more serious circumstances, sleep deprivation has been linked to conditions like depression and anxiety which only lead you farther into a vicious cycle of restless nights.
5.) Improve Memory And Knowledge Retention
Remember when your teacher or professor back in school insisted you got a good night’s sleep after studying for a big test? It turns out sleep is fundamental for certain brain functions like memory retention, learning, mood regulation (as we talked about before), and even brain development for babies.
While you’re asleep, your brain cells are working to transfer short-term memories into the long term, which solidifies them into your head so that you can recall the information in the future. This was proven when researchers analyzed the brain scans of volunteers who did and didn’t get a full night’s sleep after they learned new skills.