Visco Elastic Mattresses

Why Visco Elastic Mattresses May Feel Firm

Viscoelastic mattresses can have a truly unique feel but only you can determine whether they are too soft or too firm. But what do most people think of them in general and of brands like Tempur-Pedic? Are they too firm or too soft? What else apart from our personal comfort affects how we perceive the mattress?

For some people, memory foam mattresses may seem too firm initially, for a number of reasons which we’ll get to in a minute but, unlike with softness, none of them indicate poor quality visco foam, except one. Read what makes the best memory foams first.

How To Recognize A Poor Quality Visco Memory Foam Mattress

The Good Quality Kind

The unique open cell structure of viscoelastic foam dampens shock and absorbs motion which is why it responds with stiffness when you quickly lie down or throw yourself onto the mattress like you would do when you were a kid. This stiffness is the way memory foam reacts at time of impact and does not necessarily indicate a hard mattress.

Increased firmness in a memory foam mattress may also result from the cooler environment it’s kept in. When you first lie down on it, it seems firm but after a few minutes of body contact, it softens and flows around your body without allowing you to sink too far in. The mattress becomes softer at the top but deeper down, where it’s cooler, the mattress is firm and supportive.

Good quality, high-density visco foam mattresses like Tempurpedic are firm to begin with due to their high resilience core and need a few weeks to break in, so take that into account before buying. Foam samples are useful in principle but useless when determining softness or hardness.

The Poor Quality Kind

Beware, higher density viscoelastic foam tends to trap more heat than lower density foam. Some manufacturers try to minimize heat-related complaints by burying the visco mattress under pillowtops or heavier fiberfill padding. This means it cannot react the best it possibly could to body temperature because it is now insulated from the body.

The result is a firmer mattress that won’t soften as easily or even at all at body temperature. You are therefore missing out on the one benefit that would truly justify the high visco foam prices.

The bottom line is that the firmness of genuine memory foam mattresses changes at body contact as long as it made of the heat-responsive type. Unfortunately, only you can tell if it adjusts sufficiently to your body depending on your weight, size, sleeping preferences and environment.

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