Here at Woodstock Furniture & Mattress Outlet, our sleep experts encourage customers to think of their mattress, base/foundation, pillows and bedding as a single, united sleep system. However, when making a mattress purchase, the vast majority of shoppers focus almost entirely on the mattress itself. In other words, everything but the mattress is an afterthought. That’s unfortunate, because each of these things have the ability to significantly elevate (or diminish) the quality of your sleep. Perhaps the most overlooked and undervalued piece of this better sleep equation is the adjustable base – and it can offer sleepers a ton of benefits!
Adjustable bases – also known as adjustable beds, adjustable bed frames, or adjustable bed bases – are relatively new to the mattress industry. As a result, many mattress shoppers don’t have much firsthand experience with them. This unfamiliarity also means that our seasoned sleep experts hear a great many questions about adjustable bed bases.
Are adjustable beds worth it? How can an adjustable base benefit my sleep? Do you need a special mattress for an adjustable bed? What about a special bed or headboard? How to hide an adjustable bed frame? Aren’t adjustable beds just for sick or elderly people?
All of these adjustable base FAQs lead to a much bigger question. “Is an adjustable bed base right for me and my needs?” This short article will answer all these questions for you – and more! Keep reading to explore the health benefits and practical benefits of adjustable bases, and to learn if an adjustable bed frame is right for you!
Why You Should Consider An Adjustable Bed Base / Adjustable Bed Frame
The most common objection we encounter from shoppers is that they think adjustable bed bases are “just for old people”. But today’s adjustable bases are a far cry from the “hospital beds” of decades past. While they still offer the same health benefits of those old beds (even more, actually), modern adjustable beds are just as much geared towards mattress shoppers of any age looking for greater convenience, comfort, and practicality.
As an added bonus, these days you usually don’t need a special bed to accommodate an adjustable bed frame. Most beds will work just fine with an adjustable base once the slats, platform, or other innards are removed. Your new adjustable bed base should sit easily right between your headboard, footboard and side-rails. As for headboards, the most you’ll likely need is a special headboard bracket.
Additionally, any type of foam or hybrid mattress should be compatible with an adjustable base. While older-style innerspring mattresses may have compatibility issues, the vast majority of new innerspring mattresses these days work with adjustable bed bases too.
In fact, adjustable bases are an increasingly hot trend in the mattress industry these days. According to survey findings from J.D. Power, mattress shoppers who bought adjustable bases along with their new mattress were consistently the most satisfied with their purchase after the fact. But why?
Unlike traditional flat mattress foundations (often incorrectly called box springs) whose sole job is to provide support to the mattress, adjustable bed frames offer a bunch of additional benefits. Let’s look at some of these health benefits and practical lifestyle benefits below.
Health Benefits of Adjustable Bases
We’re no doctors, but we know that sleep is incredibly important. Study after study reveals just how important sleep is to everything from the immune system, to work performance, to the healthy development of our children. Unfortunately, sleep is a very fragile thing. There are a multitude of factors that can affect our quality of sleep. Adjustable bases are one easy way to mitigate many of these factors.
Common conditions that affect the body’s ability to sleep usually fall into a handful of categories, and adjustable bed bases can help with each. These health conditions usually fall into four buckets – musculoskeletal issues that involve the joints and muscles, respiratory problems that impact our ability to breathe, gastroesophageal issues involving the stomach or digestion, and circulatory problems involving blood-flow and inflammation.
To repeat, we are not medical professionals. While you should always consult your physician if you’re concerned about any of the issues below, an adjustable base is often useful in treating these symptoms.
Adjustable Base Benefits for Your Muscles, Bones, Nerves & Joints
Are you dealing with chronic back, lumbar, neck, shoulder or hip pain? Do you have slipped or herniated discs in your spine? How about arthritis, pinched nerves or sciatic nerve pain? Far too many people wake daily with some form of muscle or joint soreness. To manage these aches and pains, orthopedic specialists often recommend sleeping in certain positions depending on what is bothering you.
For instance, slightly lifting the legs is perfect for relieving hip and lower back pain. Meanwhile, “zero-gravity” settings on many adjustable bases are great for overall decompression of the spine. This decompression can also help manage different types of neck, back and nerve pains. If you suffer from any of these, an adjustable bed frame may be the perfect solution for you. As a bonus, some adjustable beds offer a gentle massage function to help relax your various muscles and tissues.
Adjustable Base Benefits for Your Respiratory System
The main health benefits that adjustable bed bases offer in this area involve the management of chronic congestion, snoring, and sleep apnea. Whether for yourself or your loud-snoring bedmate, adjustable bases offer real, tangible solutions.
Slightly elevating the head while sleeping can reduce or even eliminate snoring depending on the cause. Many modern adjustable bases include anti-snoring presets so that if your partner starts snoring in the middle of the night, relief is a single button-push away. Advanced bases like the TEMPUR-Ergo and TEMPUR-Ergo Extend smart bases with Sleeptracker AI even have an automatic snore response which detects snoring and adjusts your mattress automatically!
Adjustable Base Benefits for Your Gastric System / GI Tract
Unfortunately, GERD, acid reflux, heartburn, and indigestion are increasingly common in modern America. Do you suffer from any of these conditions, either occasionally or chronically? If so, you may want to consider an adjustable bed.
A primary cause for many people who suffer from these various gastrointestinal issues is a weak esophageal sphincter. This natural valve inside your body is supposed to close off the esophagus after food has entered the stomach. However, if it is weakened, stomach contents and stomach acid can start to come back up, causing irritation and acid indigestion. Since the stomach is on your left side, many gastro doctors advise patients to sleep on their left side so your stomach/esophagus gets a little help from gravity. Similarly, by sleeping with your head and torso slightly inclined, gravity will help minimize your symptoms.
Adjustable Base Benefits for Your Circulation
Lastly, there are a number of health problems and symptoms related to poor circulation that adjustable beds can help manage. Are you diabetic? Do you have osteoarthritis? What about swelling in the legs and feet, restless leg syndrome, or numbness in your extremities (called neuropathy)? Each of these conditions are at least somewhat related to poor circulation or resulting inflammation.
The ability to adjust or tilt your sleeping surface can help alleviate these symptoms too! Depending on which issues you suffer from, different settings like foot-lift and “zero-gravity” can help you manage these conditions. On top of that, the decompression and relaxation that you get from “zero-gravity” and massage functions promotes relaxation that generally promotes better circulatory function.
Practical Benefits of Adjustable Bases
Okay, so maybe you don’t snore like a chainsaw or suffer from a bad back. However, there’s still a whole slew of non-medical reasons to own an adjustable base. Even if you don’t have any of the conditions above, adjustable bases still provide basic benefits like easily being able to tailor your mattress to your body’s preferred sleeping position, and from being able to get in and out of your bed easier.
Do you often read in bed like millions of other Americans? Do you binge-watch TV, or use a laptop, tablet or smartphone in bed? Instead of endlessly rearranging your pillows to get just the right support to sit up and get comfortable, consider the alternative. Press a single button and let your adjustable base do the work for you!
Extra practical benefits depend on the model you choose, but some adjustable base options have USB ports to help charge your devices, massage and zero-gravity functions to help you relax, and under-bed or bed-side lighting.
Is an adjustable base worth it for you? Well, it all depends on what features are most important to you. However, if you’re someone who sees the value of any of these things, we think you’ll be blown away by the amount of extra functionality an adjustable bed will add to your bedroom.
“Okay, I’m Convinced, But Which Adjustable Base Is The Best Fit for Me?”
By now, you should have a good sense about whether an adjustable bed base is right for you. If these benefits sound like something you’d like to explore further, you’re well on your way to a new sleep system that will help manage tons of the symptoms and issues above, boost your relaxation and productivity, and give you a better night’s sleep!
But how do you even go about choosing an adjustable base? With tons of models on the market, it can be difficult to choose. But don’t worry! We’ve already done the heavy lifting for you! Be sure to read our article comparing some of our favorite adjustable bases from brands like Tempur-Pedic, Purple and Sealy.
If you think you’re ready to try any of these adjustable bases for yourself, come see us at our North Georgia and Atlanta area furniture and mattress stores. Our Woodstock Mattress Outlet locations in Canton, Douglasville and Kennesaw specialize in mattresses, adjustable bases, and everything else related to sleep. Swing by today and let our sleep experts help you find the perfect mattress and base for you!
