Why I bought a very expensive mattress (and don’t regret it)

Reading time: ~2–3 minutes

My old mattress wasn’t great.
I often woke up with aches in my neck or back.

For a period of my life, I stayed at a hotel. I never had back pain sleeping on the mattress there.

Some time after, I sought out the manufacturer/brand and found the same (or a consumer, slightly modified version) of that mattress.

I bought it.

It was about four times more expensive than a cheaper alternative.

Before buying, I sat on or laid on many other brands. I tried pretty much every bed that was available on display.

There was one cheaper alternative that felt reasonable. I actually fell asleep on it for a few minutes before realising. That’s usually a good sign.

But I went for the expensive brand.

I could also fall asleep on it. And it felt wonderful. My back felt wonderful.

Across my years of on-and-off practising gratitude, my bed (specifically the mattress) often shows up on my list of things I’m grateful for.

Today, four years later, I reflected on that purchase decision again.

It was a good purchase.

Amortised (divided) across days of use, it isn’t expensive at all. I would happily pay more per day to sleep on this mattress.

It’s also probably less expensive than the future cost of earlier back pain.
(Though I try to mitigate that anyway with weightlifting.)

Related:

• Humans are more sensitive to short term losses than long term gains (loss aversion)

Choosing a mattress:

There’s a commonly repeated idea that hard mattresses are good for your back.

From what I could find, this seems mostly false.

Medium-soft mattresses appear to be better for most people. The evidence isn’t strong, but it generally points in that direction.

From old notes:

• UpToDate on mattresses for back pain: softer is better than hard (low-quality evidence)
• Health websites reviewed by healthcare professionals: foam seems better for bad backs

At least, this matches my own experience.

Side note:

Recently, a friend pointed out that I seem to know a lot (more than a layperson) about fields I’m not formally educated in.

“Memory Repository, Doctor of Google Search. PhD in Google Search,” I replied humorously.

Jokes aside, I’ve spent a lot of time researching fundamentals, then digging into studies and more advanced material. Most of it starts with a search engine. Some Googling.

Digging through journal/notes: this happens occasionally, I realise.

Also, wow. Re-visited an old note (How to Calculate How Much You Are Willing to Pay For Expensive Purchases If You Can Afford It but Are Very Frugal):

Okay. I realised, in my Standard Notes database, I have a mountain of draft posts (originally not intended for listed.to) and notes with just a few sentences detailing many ideas and thoughts.
I'll slowly push them out on listed.
This is great! Many years ago, I considered the problem of not having enough posts and ideas. I dreamed of having a massive database of notes I can just draw from.
And now I have it. My notes are truly my Memory Repository.

This still rings true.