Is it better to sleep on a hard or soft mattress? Well, it depends on your preference whether you like a soft or hard mattress. The soft mattress is after all soft and cushions your body. The hard mattress, as the name suggests, gives your body a stiff surface to sleep on. Usually, the results are also in the same vein. When you sleep on a soft mattress, your body sinks into its soft cushion and when you wake up your body tends to be loose and sagging. The joints and muscles are in a state of relaxation. It will take a while to train them for an active daily life.

When you sleep on a hard mattress, it does not allow the body to sink into the mattress. It gives the spinal cord a more even surface to lie parallel. Since it does not allow much relaxation to the joints and muscles, they tend to be in a more active state when you wake up the next morning.

Depending on how you like to wake up the next morning, you can choose a soft or hard mattress. From the perspective of better health, a hard mattress is more preferred. It allows the body to be in on its own without much cushioning support from the mattress. This means, all the muscle groups were supposed to support themselves, the flow of body fluids and breathing process were unhindered and as per the body’s natural process.

In the case of soft cushion, the protruded and heavier parts of the body sag into the mattress and they find better support than the lighter parts of the body. As a result, the spinal cord is not straight and parallel but inclined towards the lower part of the body which sags deeper into the mattress due to the heavy bottom or hip.

While sleeping on a hard mattress may not feel so much comfortable as sleeping on a soft mattress, the hard mattress gives you a more active wakeup while a wakeup from a soft mattress would need some kind of shakeup to get your body back in shape and form.

Sleeping Position & Other Facts

  • People who sleep on their back or stomach find hard mattress better for them.
  • People who sleep on their sides find soft mattress supporting their body better.
  • For lightweight people, a soft mattress is always a better choice.
  • Compared to the hard mattress, soft mattresses are more expensive.
  • Soft mattresses tend to become softer after some use, achieving its prime after some years of use.

Is It Better To Sleep On A Hard Or Soft Mattress?

Well, there are quite a few factors that can influence your decision to pick a soft or hard mattress for a good night’s sleep. These factors can be your weight, sleeping habits, health conditions, and the comfort requirement. Given the extreme difference that soft and hard mattresses have between them, a middle approach of choosing a medium-firm mattress is perhaps a more intelligent decision. This would ensure the goodness of both the mattress types while rejecting the negative qualities.

Soft Mattress Vs Hard Mattress

Soft Mattress Pros

  • Sleeping on soft mattresses can reduce back pain, joint pain, and overall body pain in people with advanced age.
  • For people who are lightweight, a soft mattress with a medium-solid cushion can be more appropriate. It will provide all the richness of a soft mattress yet it will be able to support the spinal cord because of its medium-solid cushion.
  • A soft mattress is a good choice for people who prefer to sleep on their sides, especially in a fetal position.
  • A soft mattress design can be achieved by using a soft top framework on a firm basic mattress. This ensures you should have a medium-firm sleeping mattress whose top is delicate and cushioned.

Soft Mattress Cons

  • The ultra-softness of the mattress can stop supporting the spinal cord and put it out of alignment. It can cause pain in the spinal cord and impact the quality of sleep
  • Soft mattresses are more expensive than hard mattresses.
  • Soft mattresses tend to become all the softer with use. This means a soft mattress is likely to become softer after a couple of years of use.
  • Sharing a soft mattress is difficult as different people prefer different levels of softness

Excessively Hard Mattress

A major positive with hard mattresses is that they support the spine and keep it in alignment, something that a soft mattress is unable to ensure. However, a hard mattress can be excessively hard and it may not support the spine in the most healthy way. A mattress that’s too hard does not go well with your body and its developmental needs and natural processes from breathing to body fluid movement.

An excessively hard mattress does not encompass the body efficiently. This may result in the body bouncing and rolling around instead of snugly ensconced in the bed. One of the fallouts can be that you may tumble out of the bed. From lack of quality sleep to lack of rest and coziness, an excessively hard mattress can be a serious hurdle in achieving a good night’s sleep.

Final Thoughts

Is it better to sleep on a hard or soft mattress? The answer to this question lies in personal preferences and your health condition. And, there are some issues, all of which we have dealt with in this article.

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