Paleo Mattresses

It recently occurred to me that cavemen probably didn't sleep on Tempur-Pedics. I can't find any anthropological evidence suggesting that our ancestors had access to memory foam or dragged spring mattresses around everywhere they went.

I had some low back pain from an overenthusiastic deadlift session a few months ago, and found that I'd wake up every morning with my back feeling exactly as painful as the previous morning, and blamed the mattress. I tossed that sucker out of my room and laid down some hardwood planks on my bed frame instead, with a few blankets over the boards for padding. To my only semi-surprise, my back felt much better the next morning, and continued getting better over time.

At first I had to use fairly generous padding, but over the next couple of weeks I was able to remove more and more of the blankets, to the point now where I'd estimate there's only a centimeter or two of cotton between me and the boards. If you use too little padding in the early stages, it's quite painful (feels like the wood's pressing right up against your skeleton), but you acclimate surprisingly quickly.

I like this arrangement, although I'm not dating anyone right now and I can foresee trouble in the future on this front. Maybe I'll have a regular mattress for special occasions but personally sleep on the floor in a pile of animal furs.

What kind of mattress do you guys use?

Two sleeping bags zipped together are our mattress.

And I have a similar story. I was sleeping on a nice mattress and I started getting pins and needles in my arms, hands, and fingers. My NP prescribed something (can't remember the name offhand). By the time I had googled the symptoms and the meds, I tossed the meds and tossed one of my pillows. Better, but for months, I had almost no feeling in my left thumb, fore, and middle fingers.

Enter new bf. Floor(ish) sleeper. A couple of weeks, and all the feeling in my fingers came back. No more pins and needles ever.

Needless to say, I'm a convert.

We have a queen sized predecessor to the SleepNumber mattress. It is now about 25 years old and going strong. It is an air mattress, each side adjustable from super soft to nearly rock hard. My side is normally pretty firm. It was expensive way back when I got it, but it was well worth the money.

Hmm, our mattress is needing replacement, and I am worried about making the wrong choice. Much as I see the appeal of sleeping on the floor on a pile of animal skins I can't see my DH feeling happy about that.

My mattress is pretty old. The thought of putting money down on another....gets me. They are certainly costly. Heck, way back in the olden days I could not even sleep on the ground I was so used to air mattresses. I cannot imagine sleeping on a wooden frame.

Hubby is a chiropractor and gets the "what's the best mattress" question all the time. His answer is, "whatever gives you a good, rested,night's sleep". His point is that sleep is so important that you should sleep on whatever works for you.

True, Ontario, but the problem for everyone is how do you find the sleeping solution that works best for you? It's hard to go around sampling a night's sleep on different ones, and even a single full night may not give you a good read on what's best.

That's one reason why I'm a big fan of the SleepNumber type mattress (as noted in my earlier post) -- you can dink around with different levels of firmness until you find what's right for you, it may take a while even on one held captive in your bedroom. Yes, they are pricey, but based on my experience it will last darn near forever. I think ours is approaching 30 yrs and still going strong.