The Adjustable Bed Blog

We live in a time where we seldom own anything for the expected life of the product. We lease cars, shackled to a car payment for as long as we get behind the wheel. We buy and sell stocks on a daily basis, and for some it seems like a “for sale” sign is part of the landscaping of their home, always looking for bigger and better. So why do we push our mattress and foundation to the limit and beyond?

We have done the math before, and on average we spend about 3,000 hours per year in bed. In a slightly sarcastic tone, that is why we spend $70,000 on a car and when our mattress starts to sag we buy a cheap pillow top to “just get by” a few more months or years.

It is recommended that we all replace our mattress and foundation every seven to ten years. When you think about it, that is a pretty good deal. You spend around $3,000 for a nice mattress and foundation and sleep on it for 30,000 hours over the course of ten years. Seriously, what else can you do for ten cents an hour? A dime doesn’t get us much these days – can’t make a phone call, mail a letter or even park our expensive car for longer than a few minutes with ten cents. But what we can do is relax in a peaceful slumber and recharge our mind, body and spirit for the next day’s challenges.

By replacing that tired and worn out sleep system with regularity, you could actually feel better. Even the best mattress on the market will begin to lose the feel of comfort and support with each toss and turn over a decade. But a properly constructed mattress and foundation will allow you to wake up refreshed and rested, rather than stiff and sore.

If you have noted throughout this entry, I have always referred to replacing the mattress AND the foundation when you make that next purchase. The foundation or box spring acts like a shock absorber for the body and over time the shocks don’t respond like they used to, so when the mattress goes, so does the foundation.

One final tip before I leave you pondering the question I hope I have raised in your mind – when exactly did I buy the mattress I am sleeping on? I have found that the easiest way to know when to replace is to write the date you purchased the mattress on the box spring or one of the tags on the mattress for a quick reminder. The time to change is not always when there is a bump, lump or sag, sometimes we have to abide by the 30,000 hour rule. Trust me; you will thank me in the morning.

In a recent extremely comprehensive report focused on the bedding industry, I found a startling discussion topic in the analysis. It stated that some manufacturers, due to new flammability standards, are now looking beyond comfort and luxury when designing new products and producing older lines that are now up the new standard. This is more than a bit troubling to me as I know that a mattress can be comfortable as well as compliant – it just takes time, quality and craftsmanship.

Mattresses and sleep systems are not like those found 50 years ago; today’s models are engineering masterpieces in some cases. Every square inch is inspected, every piece, component and material serves a purpose, or at least they should. This is not to say that comfort takes precedence over safety, but rather, these two requirements can and should work in concert with one another.

As a manufacturer of adjustable beds, I am faced with even more engineering possibilities to consider that most traditional mattress manufacturers do not. I deal with power sources, speed and angle of movement, actuators and flex just to name a few, all in addition to the variables that go into crafting a quality mattress.

Even though there is always a mattress sale, the purchase of a quality sleep system is an investment – an investment in a good night’s sleep. I hope that the comments made that flammability compliance trumps comfort were made by a minority and not the majority as they reflect all that is wrong with this industry. Would you buy a car that meets all the governmental guidelines for safety, but doesn’t have a radio, air conditioning, heat, door locks or a trunk – and it costs the same as a model with all of these? Neither would I.

Rest assured that my company did not make these remarks, and more importantly, I am positive that you can get a comfortable night’s rest on an adjustable bed…and it meets all flammability standards.

In our age of quick fix, take a pill for this and that, we often take the easy way out, or only hear things that we want to hear. The bedding industry is not an exception for some manufacturers who claim they possess a cure. Before I go on, it is important to know the rules of the game, the legal rules of how a bed or mattress can be marketed. A bed or sleep system cannot cure an illness, disease or condition. A bed, like an adjustable bed, can alleviate some syptoms of conditions like restless leg syndrome, GERD, acid reflux, and many others, but it will not cure them. The mere act of sleeping in bed “x” cannot repair years of wear and tear on the human body.

I bring up this topic as a friend sent me a Web site that told the tale of the waterbed. If you lived in the 1970’s or 1980’s you probably slept at one time on one of these floating furnishings. The site made some reasonable claims that a waterbed may help people with back pain, although it usually took me longer to get out of the bed than the time I slept, but it could be plausible. As I scrolled to the bottom of the page the claims got bolder and bolder, until, there it was, the end all, be all. This organization of the waterbed industry claimed that sleeping on a waterbed, can cure insomnia.

I have been in this industry for decades and have heard many statements, and this one was big. A cure for 70 million Americans can be had with a bed that is filled with a garden hose. I poke a bit of fun at the waterbed industry, but the problems many of us have with sleep affect the way that we live, and this is not a subject to joke about.

If you suffer from a condition, do your research, make some calls and test multiple styles of beds to see what works best for you. Look for a reputable company or salesperson to deal with and know that if the claim of a cure is made, it is not only a lie, it is illegal.

If you had an extremely important project to do for work and your boss walked in to ask when they could expect it, chances are you would get fired if you replied, “I’ll get to it, when I get to it.” However, as Americans, we utter this statement to ourselves virtually every day of the week when it comes to sleep. We would all like to be able to unplug the alarm clock and just sleep until we get up, but we can’t. Longer hours at work, children, television, stress, more stress and a constantly racing mind are just a few of the reasons we opt for activity rather than down time.

Nearly 7 out of 10 people say they experience a frequent sleep problem, and ironically, or not, the same percentage also says they don’t have time to sleep the recomended number of hours a night. I understand that some have a medical condition that does not afford them the opportunity to get the quality of sleep they need, but there is a larger issue for the majority of us – time management.

We all know that person who walks around the office telling everyone that he needs less sleep than the rest of us – 3 or 4 hours tops. That same person is usually holding a coffee cup everytime you see them, and is the last one to leave the office every night, but has no more work than the next person. The reason why – poor time management.

I have a friend who is an occupational therapist and he often starts off his seminars and lectures in the following way. He asks everyone to write down their “to-do” list – work, home, projects – you name it, write it down. Many of us have this nagging little list that looms on our desk, in our briefcase or on our BlackBerry. This list seldom contains the words “sleep more”. He then asks everyone for the next few weeks to write down only three things on the revised list, when one is completed add one more. By not feeling like we are drowning in a sea tasks, we are better able to focus and accomplish our goals.

If you think about it, the list of three will only have two things to do on it each as, “sleep more” should always be at the top, and if we continue at this pace, we will never accomplish this goal. Habits take time to break, and sacrificing sleep in no different. If we put our minds to it, turn off the television a bit earlier and worry about work when we are at work, a more restful future is within reach…and an adustable bed, just makes it that more comfortable.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) estimates that 330 deaths and 1,680 injuries occur each year from mattress fires. After more than eight years of research and study, they enacted a new federal mattress flammability standard that went into effect last year. The standard was instituted to limit the intensity of a mattress fire, and they hope these new guidelines can eliminate 75 percent of deaths and injuries due to a mattress catching fire.

This is not the first fire standard to be mandated by the government. In the early 1970’s a federal cigarette-ignition standard was put into place. However, this recent move takes safety one step further by addressing open flames. It is important to note that increased fire resistance does not mean that the risk of fire is eliminated completely.

We at Flex-A-Bed believe the safety, health and well being of our customers are top priorities for our company and the industry as a whole. A safer mattress cannot reduce injury and risk alone though. Just as with anything in the home that could catch fire, we urge consumers to be careful with candles, to keep cigarettes and lighters away from children, have working smoke detectors throughout their homes and to never smoke in bed.

Research shows that about one-third of deaths from bedroom fires involve either people in or near the bed, another third are those that are elsewhere in the bedroom, while the last third die when the fire “flashes” over from the bedroom to other parts of the home. These “flashes” can be in excess of 1200 degrees and take under three minutes to occur. The new standard is intended to slow the growth and intensity of a mattress fire, delaying or avoiding flash over, giving consumers a longer time to escape to safety.

The CPSC is not stopping with the bedding industry either. Proposed regulations are before the federal government for upholstered furniture and clothing as well. All mattresses sold right now should be compliant, but just to be sure, check the label, and if it is not approved, do not make the purchase as safety should be a top priority.

Many department stores and retailers live and die by promoting a “sale-abration,” or “rock-bottom deals.” These large-scale sales are often reserved for the holiday season and the months leading up to them, but as the economy continues to slip; the “s” word is becoming more and more prevalent. Often times these sales allow consumers to spend less and get more. But when does a sale lose its effectiveness? The answer is when there is always a sale, or when there is never a time when something isn’t on sale. Welcome to how a majority of the mattress industry operates.

Bedding Blowout! Cheap Sleep! Mattress Mania! These are all phrases that are not in our vocabulary. Half-price sales or deep discounts should send up a red flag for consumers looking to purchase a quality bed or mattress. More often than not, this is just a tactic to get consumers in the door in an effort to sell them a much higher priced product.

Just as with most purchases there are reasons why one product is more expensive than another – quality of materials, craftsmanship and comfort just to name a few. Most of us will spend close to 3000 hours a year in our bed, so saving a few hundred dollars for the sake of comfort may not be the best decision in the long run.

Consumers typically buy from two mindsets, need and want. Needs are vital to our survival and wants allow us to experience places, feelings, tastes, and most importantly, emotions that are new to us. Most us need a car, but do we need one that goes from 0-60 in 5 seconds? The answer is maybe we do. A sporty, fast car turns heads and gives an impression of status – it creates an emotion for the driver and evokes an emotion from those on the street. It is a purchased based on emotion and then rationalized with logic – this is the mentality of “the sale.”

Sales allow consumers to rationalize purchases. Consumers often say that they saved $500 on a recent purchase, but in reality they spent $4,000 to get that “savings.” When it comes to buying a quality bed or mattress, savings does not equate to comfort. We get countless calls each week at our factory from people trying to cut through the red tape, confusing sales rhetoric, and apples to oranges comparisons that they have become accustomed to. For many, this is a large purchase and one that will be with them for many years, so we offer them our advice, and highlight the main point in bed buying; no one knows comfort like you know comfort.

Here are a few tips if you are in the market for a new bed or mattress:
· Do your homework before you pull out your checkbook.
· If you have questions about a particular brand or product, call the factory where it is made and ask to speak with someone who makes the bed, not just a salesperson.
· You can only spend so much time lying on a bed in a showroom – make sure there is a return policy if you are not satisfied with your purchase.
· If you have an ailment that affects your sleep, a standard mattress may not be the best option.
· Sales are never as good as they sound. Approach the bed buying process like you are making an investment, one that will continue to pay dividends and offer a restful night’s sleep for years to come.

It was a bit of a reflective day after two different items came to my attention, seemingly unrelated, but upon further thought, closely connected. The first was a mattress ad from 50 years ago that…yes, was emblazoned with the word “SALE” across the top. It touted a product that sold for the low price of $39.95 for the set, but it was comparable to the high-priced models that retailed for $59.95. To put this in perspective for those who have not been around for 50 years, we made less money, but items cost less as well. Gas was 23 cents a gallon; you could mail a letter for 3 cents and buy a six-pack of beer for a dollar. The average income was about $4,400 and you could buy a new car for $1,700.

While this took me back on a walk down memory lane, I was startled to see the next item – well, more than a bit startled. Being in the mattress industry, I know that people still to this day put their savings under their mattress. The cost of the bed, plus the cash underneath can make for some extremely expensive beds. However, imagine having to make a choice between buying a new Mercedes or a bed? A foreign bed manufacturer recently unveiled a bed – a queen set that costs a mere $75,000. The fibers in the bed are made from platinum and if you would like to add pillows to the set they are only $2,000 each.

I know there is immense wealth in the world, and some can afford a bed that is nearing the six-figure mark, but the question I have is, why? While a quality bed is now seen as an investment, for 99 percent of us, this is our entire investment portfolio. I guess that I just long for the times when a quality product was sold for an honest price.

An adjustable bed, or Semi-Fowler bed (we will explain this a bit more coming up), is relatively self explanatory in definition. This type of bed can be adjusted to and from a number of different positions by elevating both the head and foot portion of the bed. The adjustment is not a manual procedure, rather, either a wired or wireless controller allows the sleeper to adjust certain aspects of the bed with the simple touch of a button.

Before we move on to why you should consider an adjustable bed, let us get to the discussion about why it is also referred to as a Semi-Fowler bed. Dr. George Ryerson Fowler graduated from medical school in 1871 and was known as a pioneer in first aid work. After many years, Dr. Fowler determined that if a patient was put in a semi-sitting position following certain medical procedures (head raised 30 to 45 degrees, with bent knees), this facilitated breathing and overall comfort of the patient, alleviating many common concerns in earlier medicine. This position was found to relax tension in the body and to this day is still used, most commonly in the delivery room for new mothers. So taking a cue from Dr. Fowler, adjustable beds take advantage of his insight. By elevating certain areas of the body, many adjustable bed owners say that they find relief from conditions like arthritis, GERD, breathing disorders, back pain and neck pain to name a few – all conditions that affect how we sleep and the quality of our sleep.

With the way we live our lives in today’s non-stop, always on the go world, many of us deprive ourselves of the thing we need most to be productive, happy and healthy – sleep. We use sleeping pills to get to sleep and caffeine to jump start our day, and our lack of quality sleep shows. Losses from accidents and reduced productivity are estimated to cost American businesses $150 billion a year and motor vehicle accidents involving tired drivers account for $48 billion a year in damages, according to the American Public Health Association and the National Transportation Safety Board.

From my perspective, if we want to live our lives to the best of our ability, we need to take some measures to help improve the quality of our sleep and the length of time we spend sleeping before it is too late. Insufficient sleep has been linked to hypertension, heart problems, diabetes, depression and obesity and it is a proven fact that getting more than 7 hours of sleep a night improves memory and makes people healthier and more alert.

I have found that after sleeping on an adjustable bed, I am truly comfortable when I put my head on the pillow, and when I wake up I feel as if I have actually rested and recharged my body for the next day. When you think about it, the majority of us will spend almost a third of our lives in bed, so why not find the right bed that can help deliver sweet dreams as opposed to tossing and turning.

If you have not taken the opportunity to investigate or take a test drive on an adjustable bed, you may spend the next few years counting sheep instead of living your life the way you would like.

The average American will spend about 750 hours a year in their car. This same individual will spend nearly 3000 hours a year in their bed, and over a lifetime, about 25 years. So why is it that we will drive from dealer to dealer, test drive every model on the lot, go home and think about it, drive back to the dealer, test drive the car again and then start haggling about the price, often taking days or weeks to complete the purchase? But when it comes to buying a mattress, more often than not, we flop down on the first reasonably priced mattress for a few seconds, listen to the sales pitch, look at our significant other and say “I guess it’s comfortable,” pull out our credit card and make the purchase.

If we compare the two purchases side-by-side they really are quite similar in nature. When buying a bed or a car, we look for: comfort, reliability, longevity and craftsmanship. We as consumers have been trained on how to purchase cars, but often, consumers feel a bit overwhelmed when buying a bed. Do not feel like you are alone.

Consumer Reports says it receives more inquiries about mattresses than any product other than cars. What is it about this non-technical product that causes such confusion? And what should you know before you buy your next one?

Over the almost forty years that we have been in business, my staff and I have fielded thousands of questions from people who are overwhelmed with the bed-buying experience. I think the industry makes it harder than it has to be, so I took a bit of time to debunk some of the more common mattress myths.

Myth 1: When buying a bed, look for a mattress with the highest coil count.
As long as a mattress has a coil count of at least 312, it should provide a sufficient level of comfort. As consumers, we are trained to think that more is always better, but when it comes to coil count that is not true.

Myth 2: Adjustable beds are much more expensive than a flat bed.
If you were considering an adjustable bed but thought it would be too expensive, you may be pleasantly surprised. These days the price of an adjustable bed is very comparable to high-end flat beds, as well as the newer luxury sleep systems. As you evaluate beds, make sure to keep all your options open before making a purchase.

Myth 3: Mattresses made out of memory-foam are more comfortable than traditional inner-spring mattresses.
Comfort is in the back of the sleeper. Just because your neighbors love their new memory-foam mattress does not mean you will. While some people find them very comfortable, others compare them to sleeping on wet sand. Only you can determine if it is comfortable to you.

Myth 4: All mattress manufacturers meet federal safety regulations.
Before you purchase a new mattress, find out if it complies with the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s (CSPC) new Mattress Open Flame Standard regulation. The standard went into effect on July 1, 2007 to limit the intensity of a mattress fire in an effort to reduce future injuries and deaths. The CPSC estimates that the new government safety standard could eliminate up to 75 percent of the 330 deaths and 1,680 injuries that occur annually from mattress fires. Compliance is mandatory but not every mattress manufacturer will make the grade.

Myth 5: An adjustable bed is primarily for people with health problems.
While some people buy adjustable beds looking for relief from the symptoms of illness or injury, there are many others who are simply looking for a good night’s sleep. If you lead an active lifestyle and are looking for a quality, comfortable bed, an adjustable bed may be exactly what you’re looking for.

When it comes to buying the right bed, the only thing that matters is how it feels to you. Forget the fancy advertising campaigns and the salesperson’s high pressure sales pitch. The best person to tell you the right bed for you…is you. After all, 25 years is long time not to be as comfortable as you can be.