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Memory Foam Mattress And Pain relief

By: Steve Gee Do you have a problem with chronic joint pain or lower back pain or pain in the neck etc? If you do then you most likely experience a lot of discomfort when lying or sitting in what should be the most luxurious furniture that you have in your home.

More and more people that suffer from chronic pain caused by arthritis, Pagets disease or other conditions are finding that their symptoms can be relieved to some extent by using furniture made from memory foam. It's now an established fact that memory foam mattresses can help many people to get a good night sleep by making their bed so much more comfortable and this can help to minimise the additional pain you might experience when you lie down.

So how does memory foam work and how can it help relieve pain?

Memory foam is a visco-elastic material, which means that it gets softer as it gets warmer. When it gets soft it allows objects to sink into it when the object applies pressure to the foam. Memory foam is also an insulator so it is possible to heat up the material in localised areas without the heat spreading to other parts of the foam. When a warm human body lays on a sheet of memory foam the foam becomes heated by the warmth of the body, just in the areas where the body makes contact with the foam. This causes the material to become softer under the body and allows it to sink into the foam. As you sink further into the memory foam, more and more of your body comes into contact with the foam until the warm, soft foam is giving you good support all over your body.

When the foam has moulded itself around your whole body there will be no localised pressure hot spots to cause problems because the pressure is now distributed over your whole body. This equalising of support across your body is what makes the experience more comfortable and much less likely to cause additional pain or soreness.

Why do we have memory foam?

Memory foam was originally developed for NASA for use in the space program. It was to be used as padding for the astronaut's seats as a means to relieve some of the discomfort experienced from high acceleration or 'G' forces. I'm not quite sure how this was expected to work in that situation however because the astronauts would be wearing space suits at the time which would insulate them from the foam in the seats. No heat no softening of the memory foam.

Memory foam also gives off small amounts of toxic gasses when it's new which has been the popular reason given for why NASA never actually used it in their space craft. In space there is nowhere for the gas to go.

Try some alternatives

All cases are different and while memory foam products are still expensive it pays to experiment with the cheapest solutions first. If you have trouble sleeping then try out a memory foam pillow or a memory foam mattress topper. They are both likely to be a lot cheaper than a memory foam mattress.

I recently experienced some lower back pain problems, which meant that my nice comfy lounge chairs turned into a nightmare because I couldn't get comfortable on them. A few memory foam cushions might help you out if you have similar problems.