Five Negative Impacts Of Sleeping On An Old Mattress

Old mattresses have a number of disadvantages and there are more than enough good reasons for you to buy a new mattress. From body pains to allergies, old mattresses can have a number of negative impacts on sleeping.

You Can Develop Allergies
Dust mites could be an issue if you sleep on an old mattress. Since we spend seven to nine hours of sleep on a nightly basis, equivalent to one-third of life on our mattress, our bodies give off dead skin and natural oils that can be appealing to dust mites.

Dust mites could be an issue for any mattress, but the older the mattress, the more mites you can assume which could be a real issue for you if you suffer from asthma and allergies.

Furthermore, dust mites are also a potential hazard to people with skin conditions like eczema. It is specifically the dust mite droppings that are highly allergenic.

They Can Make Your Asthma Worse

People suffering from dust allergies or allergic asthma could experience nasal congestion and airway breathing problems while sleeping on a dusty old mattress. Asthma has what is referred to as circadian rhythm, and it tends to work in the evening and the night.

Adding environmental hazard such as an old mattress can worsen things. While it won’t directly cause nighttime asthma, but it could worsen symptoms for those who have the condition.

There Is A Potential For Mold
After eight years your mattress becomes heavier after collecting dust, dead skin cells, and loads of sweat. Moisture from sweat cause mold within a mattress, and thus, potential allergies.

Mold is a difficult allergy to identify clearly, because there are different types. More so, someone can be sensitive or allergic to it.

You Could Experience Neck And Back Pains
Neck and low back pain is a common complaint due to the lack of support that comes from an old mattress. Sleeping on one stresses the ligaments, tendons, and joints of the spine.

As the mattress gets older, it will become softer and less supportive of the spine. This means that it will be more difficult to maintain proper posture at night.

You Can Become Forgetful
If you have trouble sleeping on an old mattress your memory could also suffer, since one of the functions of sleep is to consolidate your memory.

The REM sleep stage is specifically known humans retain information. A study had two groups of people perform the same task. Half of the group was then allowed to sleep before completing the task again. Those who slept were able to complete the task better the second time since they retained the prior information better.

What this means is that you could have less or poor-quality sleep, which may cause other health problems.