Speaker 1: Hey, how's it going? This is Owen with cnet.com. And in today's video, we're gonna try and answer the question for you. How should you go about shopping for your next mattress
Speaker 1: Now having the right mattress for you and your body type and your sleeping preferences is super important. Considering we spend about a third of our lives sleeping and consider during the amount of places you can buy a mattress, how many kinds of mattresses you can find? It is a pretty daunting decision, and you wanna make sure you get it right? Because a mattress can be a pretty sizable [00:00:30] investment, and we're gonna have a bunch of questions for you to answer, to help guide that decision making process. Now, we're gonna have a lot of information like for you in the description to help you out with this process, including some best lists, review, use a popular mattresses. All right, let's just dive right into this video, starting with question number one, which is probably the most obvious one, but it's nonetheless important is do you actually need a new mattress?
Speaker 1: The average lifespan for a mattress is seven to 10 years, depending on the quality of the bed. And if you start to notice body [00:01:00] impressions or sagging in certain places, or it's making a lot of noise when you're tossing and turning odds are your mattress is nearing the end of its lifespan, and you need a new one, or it could just be that your mattress isn't that old, but you just find it to be extremely uncomfortable or you're waking up with aches and pains a lot. Then that's a good sign that you might need a new mattress that better suits your body type and sleeping preferences. If the answer to this question is, yes, you do need a new mattress. You should consider your current mattress and figure out what you like. And don't [00:01:30] like about it. Do you like the feel of the bed?
Speaker 1: Is it a memory foam bed? Do you like how soft or firm it is? Do you like the responsiveness or do you want something that has a little more sink in consider all of factors of your current mattress before you want to shop for a new one? And then the next thing you need to consider is the actual size of the mattress you want to get. Are you gonna upgrade to a king size stick with the size you currently have, or maybe you're moving to a smaller space? That's something to consider for me personally, my bedroom setup [00:02:00] really does not accommodate a king size, so are stuck with a queen, but that's just something you need to keep in mind for your next mattress purchase. And also depending on which brand you end up going with Brooklyn bedding specifically comes to mind. They offer some more unique sizes than the standard twin full queen and king. So that's something to keep in mind as well.
Speaker 1: Once you have all this stuff figured out, that's when you start getting into more specific questions. And in my opinion, as someone who's tested [00:02:30] out hundreds of mattresses, the most important thing you need to figure out is how soft or firm you want your next mattress to be. Now, this is a particularly difficult thing to nail down because in general, firmness is pretty subjective. If you're heavier like me, you'll really feel beds to be a bit softer than someone who's much lighter than me. We've tested out hundreds of beds over here, and we try our best to rate beds for the average size individual. Just keep that in mind, as you're reading about firmness now, deciding on firmness for your next mattress is really gonna depend on [00:03:00] your preferred sleeping position. There are three main sleeping positions, back stomach and side, and many people are a combination of more than one of these.
Speaker 1: Now in general, if you are a back or stomach sleeper, you're probably gonna prefer a firmer mattress with a little less give. This is because if you're sleeping on your back and the mattress sinks in too much, you could develop back pain over time because your spine isn't in a straight line while you're sleeping. And then conversely people who spend the majority [00:03:30] of the night on their side tend to prefer a softer mattress that helps create a lot pressure points like their hips and their shoulders. But if you are a combination sleeper who spends a good portion of the night in any one of those three positions, you might want something closer to a medium because it can accommodate all three fairly well. I was actually helping my aunt shop for a new mattress and she is a primary side sleeper, but her old mattress was pretty firm. I suggested something softer and she's sleeping much better. Now,
Speaker 1: [00:04:00] Once you have an idea of how soft or firm you want your next mattress to be, you can start thinking about your preference on feel and materials. Now we tend to categorize mattress feels in a couple different ways. We have memory foam feels on one end and then more responsive feels on the other end memory foam beds generally have a pretty distinctive feel. You lay down on one of these things and then it's gonna feel fairly firm at first. And then that memory foam's [00:04:30] gonna soften up and you're gonna sink into it. And it's gonna remember your body's shape beds. Like Tempur-Pedic nectar, Layla, a mirror, sleep, all feature, some kind of a memory foam feel. And this is what a lot of sleepers out there are looking for. And then on the other end of the spectrum, you have beds that are much more responsive that you don't really sink into.
Speaker 1: These are beds like avocado, Sava, even some helix mattresses. Those are gonna have a more responsive feel that are very dissimilar to memory foam. And then you have beds [00:05:00] that fall somewhere, the middle that have more of a neutral feel. This means they don't really feel very distinctive. And they're just trying to be generally comfortable for most sleepers. These are gonna be beds like Casper and Lisa and ghost bed just pretty comfortable for most people, even if it's not exactly what you're looking for, figuring out your particular preference on feel and material can be pretty difficult if you don't have tons of beds to test out, but this might be a nice opportunity to go to your local mattress store and just try out a bunch of beds [00:05:30] and see what you like. And this is a perfect opportunity to ask the question, where should you get your next mattress?
Speaker 1: Obviously, there are lots of brick and mortar stores you can buy from, and there are dozens and dozens of online brands that can ship a mattress directly to your door. Now the online method has become more and more popular over the years. And one of the big reasons for that is their included trial period. You get at least a hundred nights, if not longer, with pretty much every online brand to sleep on the mattress at home to decide if you actually like it or not. And then the return process [00:06:00] is usually really quick and easy. Normally you just call the company up and they'll send out a local team to pick up the mattress for you and donate it to a local charity. And then you get all your money back. It might vary a bit from brand to brand, but that is how the majority of them work now, most brick and more order stores will also offer a very similar trial period. But there is essentially very little difference to going to a store and having a bed delivered and getting one sent to you online. When you buy online, you shouldn't have to pay anything extra [00:06:30] for shipping, and they should all come with a standard 10 warranty if not longer. So you can kind of zero in on a mattress, your interested in have it shipped to your door. And then if you end up liking it, that's fantastic. But if you don't, you can initiate the return process and try out another one risk free.
Speaker 1: We have a few more questions to cover. One big one is, are you getting this mattress for yourself or are you gonna be shared it with a partner? There are two pretty big factors [00:07:00] to consider when you are buying a mattress, that's meant to be shared. One of which is edge support. And the other is motion isolation. Now edge support refers to how well the edges of the mattress hold up under pressure. This is pretty important. If you're sharing a smaller size mattress and you need to utilize the entire surface area of the bed now edge support is some thing we test in every single mattress we review. So be sure to check out that section, if it's important to you and most mattress brands do a pretty good job of edge support. Most of the time, they have extra reinforced coils along the edges for this reason, [00:07:30] but it is something to keep in mind.
Speaker 1: Now, motion isolation refers to how well the mattress absorbs cross mattress motion. I'm sure you've seen the lying tests they do in those Tempur-Pedic commercials from way back. And again, this is something that most beds do quite well, but an all foam memory foam bed is gonna perform a bit better than a latex hybrid. Again, it is something that is included in all of our written reviews. And then the last question you need to ask yourself is what is your budget for a new mattress? I commend setting a [00:08:00] range of a high end and a low end, and then finding all the beds that fit that range and shopping around you should be able to find a nice variety of beds within most price ranges from sub 500 to over 1500. Now, just because a mattress is really expensive, it doesn't mean it's the best.
Speaker 1: I would definitely shop around. Do your research do as much comparison shopping as possible to find the one that you think is the best value and will work best for your particular sleeping preferences. And again, like I mentioned, there is a trial period for most of these beds. So [00:08:30] if you end up choosing wrong, it should be pretty easy to try out another bed on your list. And when it comes to saving money on a brand new mattress, there are many discounts running year round on a lot of these online mattress brands. So make sure you check the description for whatever we're able to find.
Speaker 1: And that's pretty much gonna do it for this video. I know I've went through a lot of stuff, but there is a lot of things to consider when you're shopping for your next mattress. But I hope this video made that process a little easier. If you did find this video helpful, make sure you [00:09:00] give the thumbs up and make sure you subscribe to the channel if you aren't already. And I know I've said it a bunch of times, but there's a ton of stuff in the description to help you out with your mattress search. That's all for me. I am owned with CNET and I'll see you in the next one.
