Four Popular Mattress Features That Don’t Actually Help You Sleep Better

When you shop for a new mattress, a lot of lingo is lost in translation and sounds necessary just because it’s popular. The good news is that as far as comfort goes, some features, fancy as they are, are just less important.

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Certainly, whether a mattress is firm or plush can make or break its comfort level, but important-sounding features like hourglass type coils or whether a mattress has gel matter much less, according to Consumer Reports. They went around testing hundreds of mattresses with various features and teased out the following four things that make nary a difference in perceived comfort:

1. More or Better Coils: At a certain number of coils, around 1000, more does not necessarily mean better. Further, the quality or type of coil doesn’t seem to noticeably impact comfort either.
2. Hybrid Foam Layers: These mattresses typically have a foam layer on top, which are supposed to improve the feel of the innersprings. The foam varies in thickness from mattress to mattress, but for the mattress to positively impact ratings, the foam had to be many centimetres thick.
3. “Cooling” Gel: Gel in your mattress is supposed to keep you cool while you sleep, which can improve your sleep quality, but they didn’t find this effect in gel-infused foam beds.
4. Extra Lumbar Support: Who doesn’t want extra support for their lower back? Unfortunately, it didn’t show any significant benefits.

That said, there were a couple of features that were worth looking into, but have nothing to do with comfort. For example, a removable mattress cover is nice for ease of cleaning, and handles on the mattress itself can make rotating it more easy.

4 Features That Don’t Improve Mattress Comfort [Consumer Reports]