How to get a good night’s sleep

Getting a good night’s sleep is crucial to your performance the next day, and can seriously affect your health. Blake Garfield from Bedrooms and More helps Pete find a good mattress.

First, Blake recommends taking the right amount of time to find your mattress. “It’s not something where you can just drive out and spend an hour and be done with the whole process, and it’ll be delivered right away,” he says. He recommends allocating a whole day to mattress shop, on top of doing research in advance.

“If you make this a shortcut solution,” Pete adds, “you’ll be living with this solution — or non-solution — for years and years.”

When doing research, Blake cautions against solely relying on Internet research. “Trying to discern what’s good information and what’s bad information is the challenge here,” he says. He recommends checking out his website for more information about raw mattress materials.

Before buying a mattress, Blake recommends knowing what mattress you have. “Look at the law label on the mattress that you have now,” he suggests. Knowing what you have now will definitely help in the purchasing process, he says. He also says you should be ready to talk about your sleeping style — are you a stomach sleeper or a back sleeper — body type and budget.

Based on how you’re built, Blake says, may alter your mattress preferences. A side sleeper who carries the bulk of their weight between their shoulders and hips may prefer a firmer mattress. A softer mattress does not provide as much hip support and is more likely to cause hip and back pain.

Blake also cautions you against making a dramatic mattress change, which is why he recommends knowing what kind of mattress you already have. For example, if you think your current mattress is too firm and choose to transition to the softest bed available, he says you’re going to be more unhappy than if you incrementally decrease the firmness of your mattress.

When shopping for a bed, Blake recommends wearing comfortable clothes, bringing your pillow, and also possibly a blanket. Comfortable clothes allow you to greater flexibility when testing a bed, and more of an idea of what it will be like to sleep on a mattress. When you’ve narrowed your selections to two or three, Blake says you should assume your normal sleeping position and stay on the bed for fifteen or twenty minutes. Your body will alert you to discomfort, and you should listen. An uncomfortable mattress now will not be a comfortable mattress later.

If you’re beginning the mattress-shopping process, Blake suggests checking out mattress stores on Yelp or Google Reviews, and getting recommendations from friends to make sure you’re getting the best mattress at the store with the best service.

Bedrooms and More is a proud sponsor of Home Matters.

Home Matters with Pete and Rob can be heard on KIRO Radio every Saturday at 8 a.m. and Sunday at 6 a.m. or anytime at KIRORadio.com. Like Home Matters on Facebook.