Sleep is the great healer, capable of helping to restore our natural balance and repair the many damages life can deal us. Better understanding the best mattress for you can help to ensure you are doing all in your power to help facilitate a restful night’s sleep for yourself. Even a single missed night’s sleep has been shown to dramatically disturb how we process new information and store memories ¹. The internet is awash with mattress reviews raving about the best mattress brands, which often are surrounded by hidden fees, high prices, and poorly-backed health claims. In recent years the mattress industry has undergone a revolution, and brands like Zinus, Saatva, Tuft and Needle, and Helix have shown that direct-to-consumer sales models and science backed designs can work. These mattress brands offer uniquely-designed products that can help every type of sleeper have more rejuvenating and restful nights—which can help support overall health in many different ways. Organic mattress brands offer clean and toxin-free options for sleep, but are often far too costly for most to consider. Getting to know these brands and what type of products they offer may help you understand how to get a better night’s rest for a fraction of what it used to cost.

The Best Mattress Brands

In a previous article of ours we wrote about the best organic mattress brands and the benefits of approaching sleep from an all-natural standpoint. These types of mattresses, made with all-natural latex and organic cotton offer chemical free-sleeping that can help support toxin-free lifestyles. Organic mattresses are, unfortunately still fairly expensive, and not always designed with comfort in mind. If your concern is most focused on chemical free products, you may find most of the mattress brands discussed in this article to fall below your standards of quality. Modern mattress brands have began to disrupt how we buy mattresses forever, all starting in the last couple of years. Traditional mattresses have always been bought from stores which charge an often-outrageous markup on their prices, so they can make money. Many modern mattress companies have re-imagined this process, and have begun to offer direct-to-consumer sales through online retailers like Amazon. These mostly-foam mattresses are able to ship for free in vacuum-shrunk cardboard boxes via couriers like UPS. This makes buying mattresses online easy, and their are no middle men to raise prices. Below, you’ll find a brief overview of some of these mattress brands that we feel best represent the new dynamic within the direct-sales mattress industry.

Casper Mattresses come in small boxes and are designed for simple, comfortable sleep.

Casper

Casper has been making quite a splash within the mattress industry, having been declared by CNBC as being the ‘winner’ of this years South By Southwest Festival (SXSW) ². While this isn’t a real title, any brand that can draw that much focus during such an innovative and disruptive field of competition must be doing something seriously right. Casper mattresses are made of several layers of poly foam, which allows different contour and supportive functions to exist together. The topmost layer is for contouring your body and removing pressure points, while the middle layers are designed for even weight distribution to reduce shifting. This is the same type of technology that the ‘wine glass test’ has been seen with over the years, just sold directly from the manufacturer. Casper offers a 100 night guarantee for their products, which means at any point during that window of time you are free to return your mattress for a complete refund. As a mark of social responsibility, Casper frequently contracts local couriers to simply pick up these types of returns and donates them to local charities. Casper is truly an innovative mattress company, and their products have been helping average buyers purchase luxury sleeping experiences. Casper mattresses are available directly from Casper’s website, or from their store on Amazon.

Tuft & Needle

Tuft & Needle are another mattress brand that utilizes the direct-sales approach to offer high quality products at more affordable prices. These mattresses are made of 6 layers of polyfoam materials each designed to provide unique contouring and supportive ability. When Tuft & Needle first started, their mattresses were designed with belly and back sleepers in mind. Their harder-than-average comfort level was revered by many, but also despised by others. For those looking for a cloudlike sleeping experience, the original Tuft & Needle mattresses came up a little empty handed. Taking heed to customer feedback, Tuft & Needle mattresses now offer a quality sleeping experience more catered to a wide range of sleeping preferences, with those wanting softer sleeps included. Overall, the comfort level of Tuft & Needle mattresses falls somewhere in the medium-soft range. Tuft & Needle mattresses are backed by a 10 year warranty, as well as a 100 night trial which allows you to return your mattress at anytime should it not be to your liking. When shopping in mattresses stores, you’re often rushed to decide which mattress will offer the best night sleep for you. Truth be told; we’re all unique in how we sleep and the only real way to know if a mattress will provide comfortable sleep for you is to actually sleep on it. Tuft & Needle make this easy, and ship out their mattresses is easy to manage cardboard boxes that arrive via UPS. Tuft & Needle mattresses are available for purchase directly from the Tuft & Needle website, or also through Amazon where Prime members can get them with free 2 Day shipping.

Saatva

Saatva offers the same great direct sales model that many modern mattress brands now utilize, but they don’t limit their product strictly to an all-foam design. Many of the new mattress brands got their fame for their ability to be vacuum packed in tiny cardboard boxes and shipped via couriers like UPS and FedEx. This was an amazing way to undercut the exorbitant prices of store brand mattress companies—but very limiting in the materials able to be used. Saatva mattresses offer a unique blend of polyfoam and inner spring design, separated into two layers to provide very compartmentalized motion support. They individually-wrap each spring so they can perform separately without becoming tangled. Traditional mattresses have their spring systems bound together as a single unit to avoid this kind of tangle, which is effective—but makes motion move throughout the entire mattress. Saatva’s mattress design allows the supportive benefits of innerspring design to overcome the downside of large motion transfer by their unique approach to wrapping the individual coils. Saatva offers a 120-night sleep trial, which you can return their mattress at anytime. Their shipping program isn’t quite as easy as the all polyfoam brands, and innersprings can’t be vacuum packed into a small box. Saatva does charge a delivery fee, which is arranged through local delivery companies. Saatva mattresses can be purchased directly from the Saatva website.

Helix Sleep

Helix Sleep offers yet another unique approach to mattress design—offering polyfoam layers customized on a per order basis to adjust for sleep preferences. Now, all things considered—their customization program is really just an interactive way to select your comfort level. If you prefer to sleep on your side, you’ll register as needing a softer comfort level than if you sleep on your back. Helix offers a great product that aligns with the shift towards an industry-wide direct-to-consumer sales approach. Buyers are now empowered by the internet both for researching brands as well as purchasing.  There has never been an easier time to find an affordable quality mattress than now, and Helix is among the handful of companies that have made it their mission to help buyers do so. Helix also offers a 100 night sleep trial program which allows confident purchasing of their products. If you are unhappy with your Helix mattress at anytime during this period of time, you are free to return it with no questions asked. Helix mattresses are available for purchase directly through the Helix website, and also through retailers such as Amazon.

Zinus

Zinus offers several different types of mattresses compared to many brands on this list, though all of them are just as high quality. Perhaps their most popular mattress is the Green Tea memory foam mattress that retails form as much as 1000% less than comparable retailer brand memory foam mattresses. Zinus has been around for nearly 20 years as a maker of quality mattresses. In recent years, they’ve made the commitment to providing direct consumer sales to fall into line with the modern marketplace. This involved their construction of a new production facility where they are able to produce innovative and modern mattress designs for astoundingly low prices. Zinus uses infusions of natural compounds like Tea Tree oil and natural charcoal to help absorb and eliminate unwanted odor and moisture. Zinus has hundreds of patents and awards for their mattresses, and they offer prices that can help anyone find a better night’s rest. Zinus mattresses can be purchased directly through their official website, or also through Amazon where they have received thousands of 5 star reviews for their products.

Benefits of Quality Mattresses

Sleep is one of the important aspects of life, and is vital to maintaining long-term quality of life. One study conducted in the late eighties found that mice were able to remain alive longer without food than they were able to remain alive without sleep ³ This effectively means that sleep is more important than eating in the grand scheme of things. Everyone lives such different lives, and has such different biological needs, that diagnosing sleep issues can be tricky. Dietary and nutritional issues can cause hypertension or adrenal dysfunction that has been known to cause insomnia. Emotional disturbances have been shown to disturb natural sleep patterns, and physical pain can be just as much of an issue as anything else. The point is, that everyone is different and requires different approaches to help regulate their natural sleep patterns in a healthy manner. These types of insights can be gained through genetic testing, blood tests, nutritional profiling, and many other diagnostic approaches meant to better illuminate the factors of your personal sleep cycles.

Now is the best time ever to buy a new mattress, and if you are having any issues with your sleep—a new mattress may be a great place

Discovering the biological factors that make you unique is a life long endeavor many times. Sleep can be affected by any of these factors, and it’s hard to narrow down potential candidates. By focusing on factors that affect anyone first—you may be able to solve some of your sleep issues without too much effort. You mattress plays a huge role in your quality of sleep, and if you’re getting your 8 hours a night—that means you’re spending as much as 30% of your life on your mattress. Sure, mattresses are expensive—but when something has the potential to affect you so deeply, you need to step back and get some perspective. Many modern mattresses from companies such as the ones mentioned above offer mattresses for prices up to 10 times lower than you would have paid just 5 years ago! Now is the best time ever to buy a new mattress, and if you are having any issues with your sleep—a new mattress may be a great place to start making changes!