What Is the Intended Purpose of a Mattress?

A Raised Sleeping Platform

• The first mattresses were simple piles of leaves or grass topped with an animal skin. They acted as a basic platform to keep neolithic humans off of the ground while they slept. Sleeping off of the ground was not merely a matter of comfort; the ground is cold during winter and can quickly sap body heat. During the summer, it may be wet, and crawling insects or other small animals are a constant threat.

Comfort

• The most obvious purpose of a mattress is sleeping comfort. Sleeping on a hard surface is difficult, and becomes more difficult as a person gets older. Mattresses are made of soft, packed cotton or wool with inner springs, synthetic foam, air cells or water chambers. They provide a soft, yet supportive layer without unpleasant lumps or sagging. Modern mattresses maintain their comfort levels for years with proper maintenance, which is minimal in most cases.

Spinal Support

• Spinal support is a major selling point of today's mattresses. Since the invention of mattress springs, it has been possible to design mattresses that hold their general shape while allowing some areas to compress more than others, depending on the pressure of the sleeper's body. Newer memory foam mattresses are supposed to shape themselves exactly to the object pressing down on them. The ideal is for the mattress to support the spinal column in a neutral position.

A Brief History

• Piles of leaves and grass sufficed as mattresses until the fourth millennium BC, when Persians began sleeping on goatskin bags filled with water. Cloth bags filled with straw, wool or cotton held sway throughout Europe and the New World until the first box and inner spring mattresses were invented in the late 19th century. Spring mattresses came into wide use by the 1930s. Foam mattresses were introduced in the 1950s; modern waterbeds appeared in the 1960s; air beds, in the 1980s.