The best mattresses for back pain

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If you’ve suffered long enough with back pain, it’s time to wake up to the advantages of a supportive, quality mattress.
The Amerisleep AS2 is as good as it gets when it comes to helping your back feel its best.
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According to the National Institute of Health, more than 80% of the US population will feel the misery of acute back pain at some time during their life, and an estimated 10% of the population has chronic lower back pain, making the condition the second most common cause of disability claims.

While the root causes of back pain are many — including sprains and strains, accidents, and spinal degeneration — there are other common issues that add to the misery: too much time spent sitting, lack of exercise, poor posture, genetics, and repetitive workplace motions, to name just a few.

Although a good mattress isn’t going to completely cure a bad back, it can go far in helping relieve the pain. Sleeping on a mattress that doesn’t give proper support — especially an old, saggy mattress — is a recipe for a morning marked by stiffness and “ouch” with every bend and twist.

Choosing a new mattress can be a chore, however. There are a lot of brands on the market, and a good mattress can be quite expensive. Luckily, we’re here to help. We’ve done the research for you and rounded up the best mattresses to help relieve back pain.

Here are the best mattresses for back pain:

Best overall: Amerisleep AS2
Best adjustable mattress: Sleep Number C4 Mattress
Best innerspring mattress: Saatva Innerspring Mattress
Best on a budget: Bear Mattress

Prices and links current as of 4/2/2020.

The best overall
Amerisleep

The medium-firm Amerisleep AS2 mattress has memory foam that cradles and supports your body, relieving pressure and discomfort.

Not only does the Amerisleep AS2 help relieve back pain and provide a great night of sleep, but it’s easier on the environment as well. Amerisleep produces its memory foam in a closed chamber, eliminating the hefty dose of harsh chemicals usually created (and expelled) in the production of this comfortable foam. Its eco-friendly production techniques ultimately lead to a mattress with very little of the lung-irritating Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) so common to memory foam.

It’s not only your lungs that will thank you, however, for a night spent sleeping on the Amerisleep AS2. Your back is going to love you as well. The heart of the mattress is Amerisleep’s Bio-Pur memory foam — a plant-based foam that cradles your body without building up body heat. That means you won’t wake up hot and sweaty, a common problem with memory foam.

A layer of Active Flex foam lies atop the Bio-Pur foam. Active Flex has high conformability and excels at relieving pressure point pain. In between the two layers of foams, there’s an Affinity layer for even more comfort, and a layer of textured channels to keep body heat from stagnating inside the mattress.

Top it all off with a Celliant fabric cover that recycles body heat into infrared light, and you end up with a mattress that is supremely comfortable, supportive, and great for anyone suffering from back pain.

Sleep Junkie chose the Amerisleep AS2 as a top pick for back pain, commenting that, “When it comes to reducing back pain, the AS2 also has Amerisleep’s Surface Modification Technology (SMT). SMT is clinically shown to reduce pressure points up to 49%. It works by grouping hundreds of six-sided foam supports into five comfort zones to provide targeted pressure relief.”

Amerisleep will return or exchange the mattress within 100 days if you don’t like it.

Pros: Free shipping and delivery, easy returns within the first 100 days, excellent support and conformability, low VOCs, and few complaints of the mattress “sleeping hot.”

Cons: Only available online, somewhat expensive

The best adjustable mattress
Sleep Number

With the Sleep Number c4, you can tailor the support just the way you like it by adjusting the amount of air inside the mattress.

According to Sleep Like the Dead, people who own adjustable air mattresses report the most relief from back pain — but this isn’t the type of air mattress you might sleep on at the in-laws’. It’s a true mattress with added dual air bladders, which you can easily adjust by adding or removing air to reach the perfect level of support your back needs.

The Sleep Number c4, which is one of the classic, less-expensive Sleep Number mattresses, not only lets you adjust the air fill, and thus the support level, it also has a 1-1/2-inch layer of comfort foam for even more support, and a three-zoned foam layer that is contoured to relieve pressure in your head, back, and hips. Top it all off with a breathable, knit fabric cover, and you have a mattress that treats your back right.

But what really makes Sleep Number special is that you and your sleeping partner can each tailor their side of the bed to the preferred level of firmness and support. So if you like it as firm as it gets, but your partner wants it a bit softer, no problem and no argument. Just reach for your remote controls and go to the “sleep number” you each prefer.

While there are several Sleep Number mattresses with more bells and whistles than the c4, they’ll naturally cost more.

Pros: Adjustable firmness and support for both bed partners

Cons: While reasonably priced by Sleep Number standards, it’s still a fairly expensive mattress

The best innerspring mattress
Saatva

A mattress so comfortable it won the Chiropractic Seal of Approval, the Saatva Classic features two different layers of individually-wrapped coils and memory foam for great spinal support.

If you like an innerspring mattress, you like to drift off to dreamland in the highest level of comfort, and you want your back to feel its very best, it’s hard to go wrong with a mattress from Saatva.

This is a mattress with every luxury. There are three firmness levels, but each mattress features individually-wrapped coils that conform to your every curve while a lower layer of wrapped coils provide support and firmness. A layer of high-quality memory foam provides even more cushioning comfort, and there’s a support system around the perimeter of the mattress so it won’t sag when you lie or sit near the edge. Finish the whole thing off with a Euro pillow-top, and you have a mattress fit for royalty.

The Saatva mattress is so good for your back, it’s been chosen as the official mattress for the Healthbridge Sleep Medicine Center, and the extra wire support for your spine contained in the mattresses’ center third won it the Chiropractic Seal of Approval.

Mattress Guides reviewed the Saatva mattress extensively, giving it a 4.7-out-of-5-star rating.

Pros: Exceptional support and comfort from an innerspring mattress

Cons: Expensive

See the rest of the story at Business Insider