Our Quest to Find the Perfect Mattress

In which I learned what to look for, and why mattresses often aren’t the problem

Do you really need a high-tech mattress setup like this, one that combines air fabric, pocket springs, natural latex, and memory foam? Illustration: Warat42/Shutterstock. Used under the writer’s license.

Soon after we started sharing a bed a quarter-century ago, my wife and I got what must’ve been a first-gen Tempur-Pedic memory-foam mattress. I think Neil Armstrong invented it. Or maybe I made that up. Anyway, it served us well for years and years. We loved that mattress, couldn’t wait to get to bed each night, slept blissfully. We both gave it a solid 10 out of 10.

But over time, the occasional mid-sleep rollover grew into frequent tossing and turning, especially for me, as I dealt with ongoing low-grade low back pain and new pains developing in my hips and one shoulder. Gradually, high-quality sound sleep — the blissful nights that leave you refreshed and ready to seize the day—became a memory.

Perhaps the memory foam had absorbed all the g-force it could withstand.

So we bought a new Tempur-Pedic. But it was never as good as that first one. Over the next couple years, the rollovers became chronic, and my shoulder, back and hip pain grew worse. I tried all the tricks: pillow between the legs, different shoulder positions, heavy doses of NyQuil (which, as I later learned, was just plain stupid).