Sleep Innovation through the Years and Today

Mankind has always been innovative with regards to sleep, and if we trace the history of it we find one great idea after another, which somehow leads us to the next, and the next: the very epitome of “standing on the shoulders of giants”.

The American Indians used to stuff blankets with fluffy white bulrush seeds to make pillows, and during the reign of the Persian Empire they used to fill animal skins with water: the first water beds! Not that long ago mattress used to be filled with Goose Down feathers, and some pillows still are. Indeed, even with the advent of the box spring mattress during the industrial revolution the severity of the springs had to be softened by the layering of hessian (coarse cloth) and a final layer of goose down stuffing stitched into the mattress cover, and again, some manufacturers do that process still, today.

The space age brought a solution from NASA to the problem of the severe buffeting that astronauts get when seated at the controls, which eventually became memory foam in use by hospitals to avoid the problems of bedsores in patients with long-term immobility, which is still the case today. Hospital ICU departments use memory foam mattresses to aid in the reduction of complications from circulation issues in patients recovering from surgery. The magical materiel has now become the source of the worlds most popular bed; how the mattress has evolved, but the purpose of all this innovation is still the same, which is to get a good nights sleep.

Now innovation has given us the next incarnation of memory foam technology: the gel-foam mattress. This is a memory foam mattress with little gel capsules in the foam. It is purported to give even better spine alignment, ‘cradles’ less for those that ‘toss & turn’ in the night, and has the added benefit of cooling the surface of the mattress.

The manufacturers offer the mattress in a standard size with thickness of 8 to 15 inches, and also a topper, which ranges in size from 2 to 4 inches. There are many firms that are manufacturing some variation of memory foam including the gel-foam, viscous elastic foam and other more environmentally focused memory foams including latex foams.

The mention of memory foam, which has become synonymous with Tempur-Pedic® these days but is a much larger market than that, is now connected in people’s minds to a supported and comforted sleep, and for good reason.

What we sleep on has come a long way from the times of ancient Persia, in fact has come a long way from just 50 years ago, but the objective is always the perfect nights sleep.

It is no wonder that we crave it so, given the importance of how a good night of sleep makes us feel, but while the past innovations have focused on cosseting the senses of the skin, the new innovations are focused on the whole body as a system. Thank goodness for innovation!