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Memory Foam

and its Many Unique Advantages

I have seen all types of mattress material variants….. In principle there are only 7 different kinds: air, pocket spring/inner spring, latex, polyether, cold foam, memory foam and waterbeds. In my opinion there is no material that even comes close to memory foam... Although, perhaps a waterbed. When it comes down to comfort, to perfect weight distribution, adaptability there is nothing that you can really compare to a memory foam bed. With “normal” foams, when the foam is pushed it will spring back to its original shape immediately but memory foam will adapt completely and does not return straight away. This is due to its open cell structure allowing pressure to be spread to other cells due to the fact they have holes in the cells. This means all body parts especially the ones that protrude (your shoulders and  hips for example) will not have any extra pressure placed on them, this pressure disappears.

Another unique aspect of memory foam is that it also reacts to temperature. With your outer body temperature (28/29degrees) the material will react by getting softer on those parts that stick out due to there being more pressure placed on them. This temperature reaction makes the memory foam a unique mould of your body form.

Memory foam and temperature sensitivity

The amount of temperature change that occurs has everything to do with the density of the memory foam. This means that when it’s cold the foam will be harder (viscose) and with heat it becomes softer and more flexible (elastic), the higher the density the more temperature sensitive the foam becomes but I will get back to this later under the heading Density.

Memory foam is also called visco-elastic polyurethane; other names are NASA foam, slow motion foam, lazy foam, visco foam, temperature sensitive foam and Tempur foam. Tempur were very clever in their marketing in calling it Tempur foam thus making memory foam their product’s brand name and their business name. In my show room I have over 30 different kinds of memory foam, a lot of those foams are not as good as Tempur foam but there are also ones that I think are in fact better. The temperature sensitivity creates most of the comfort, this determines if the foam will press back or not, or in other words how good it will create a mould of your body. Anyway in principal we are talking about temperature sensitive foam. It is this temperature sensitivity that gives such a special feeling of melting into the mattress. Some memory foams like Tempurpedic/Tempur are extremely temperature sensitive and become harder by as little decrease in temperature as 6-8 degrees.
This has to do with the high density. By lower densities (50-60kg m3) there is a wider margin for the bedroom temperature as long as it is not colder than 10 degrees of the actual air temperature in the bedroom and warmer than 30degrees it will feel comfortable and soft. Also the ventilation is better in a lower density mattress, which is what I consider the best advice in this moisture rich environment that we live in in the UK