I recently purchased a clever application for my iPhone which works as an intelligent alarm clock. If like me you are not terribly good in the morning, and you often find that you hit the alarm clock with such regularity that you end up being able to do it in your sleep then you may find this is of some interest.

You may already know, but there are two different types of sleep. Effectively these are simply light sleep and deep sleep. The deep sleep is more often referred to as REM sleep, which stands for Rapid Eye Movement. No one is quite sure why, but when you are in deep sleep your eyes move rapidly from side to side. This may possibly be something to do with the fact that it is while you are in deep sleep that you are dreaming.

Whilst in light sleep you are not dreaming. Your body is resting, and your mind is extremely rested, with very little going on. But as you enter deep sleep your brain starts to sort out and process all of the experiences of the day. Again, no one is exactly sure of the purpose of dreams, but it is known that they form a vital function in ensuring our brains are able to cope the next day.

Our senses are picking up an astonishing array of messages, transmitting this information all at the same time to your brain. Your brain filters out anything that doesn’t seem relevant at the time, files away anything which doesn’t seem right or is in some way problematic, and during REM sleep whilst you are dreaming your brain sorts out all of this information so that it can make sense of everything in preparation for the next day. Quite possibly dreams are simply random noise generated as a by-product of all this processing.

When you first go to sleep you are in light sleep for quite some time. Eventually you will enter deep sleep, but only very briefly. As the night progresses you will enter deep sleep more and more often, and you will remain in deep sleep for longer each time. By the time morning arrives you may well be entering deep sleep for up to an hour every other hour.

The problem is though that if you have set your alarm to wake you up at a set time it is impossible to know whether you will be in light sleep or deep sleep. If you are in light sleep then the chances are you’ll be able to hit the alarm and get up reasonably easily. But if you are in deep sleep it is likely you will struggle to cope, will feel hopelessly disorientated, and extremely tempted to stay exactly where you are. The fact that you are in deep sleep at exactly the same time your alarm is likely to go off only increases the chance that you will find it very hard to wake up properly at a set time.

That’s where this application comes in. By slipping the phone under the pillow before going to sleep it is able to monitor your movement throughout the night. During light sleep you are more likely to move about. During deep sleep you will probably remain pretty much motionless. If I tell my alarm I wish to wake up on or before seven o’clock in the morning that it will monitor my movements through the night, and will use this information to wake me up when I am in light sleep, rather than deep sleep. This might mean that it wakes me up a little earlier than I need, but at least I will feel reasonably awake and alert.

So that’s the application which I have purchased, and have been using with great success. But that’s not the end of the story. Because the real problem is that many people are sleeping on sprung mattresses which fail to provide the sort of even support needed to allow you to enter deep sleep effectively. If your mattress does not offer even support, as a memory foam mattress does, then you will continue to toss and turn, remaining in light sleep for much longer than you should do.

This means that not only will you have less deep sleep throughout the night, but there is a greater chance of you being in deep sleep at about the time you need to wake up. This is simply because if you have not had sufficient deep sleep throughout the night, you’ll be popping in and out of deep sleep more regularly right before you need to wake up. If you don’t have sufficient quality deep sleep then you will almost certainly find that not only do you wake up feeling groggy, but during the day you will feel rather low on energy.

A memory foam mattress offers even support over your entire body, which means that you are less likely to move around at night. This in turn enables you to enter deep sleep more easily, helping you to enter REM sleep in a rhythmic way throughout the night, increasing the chance that you will be able to wake up whilst in light sleep, feeling more awake and more energised throughout the whole day.

If you don’t want to go for a memory foam mattress, then even a memory foam mattress topper will make a very significant difference to not only the quality of your sleep, but also the way you feel the next day. Don’t blame your alarm clock, think about your mattress instead, because that will be where the blame really ought to lie.

If you mention the words ‘memory foam‘ to most people they will subconsciously add a word to that phrase. It almost seems as though you can’t have memory foam without its necessarily being a memory foam mattress. Of course part of the reason for this is that most of the products which use memory foam are mattresses, but this is only part of the story.

Memory foam as a material has a number of unique properties which means that it does lend itself brilliantly well as a mattress. Memory foam is not soft, despite what many people think. In fact memory foam is reasonably firm, which is important in order to provide adequate support. However, the most unique feature with memory foam is that it reacts to heat. Specifically, your body’s heat.

As your body presses against memory foam the heat softens the foam temporarily so that it gives. This means that fairly quickly the memory foam adapts to the shape of your body. Obviously you don’t continue sinking further and further into the foam, but after the foam has adapted and adjusted to the shape of your body and its position, it will firm up, providing completely uniform support from head to toe. Clearly this is perfect if you’re wanting a mattress which will support you comfortably and evenly at night, allowing you to sleep more deeply and wake feeling more energised.

But that is only the start. As well as memory foam mattresses you can also buy memory foam mattress toppers and memory foam pillows, all of which work along very much the same line. But why should memory foam only be used at night? Certainly we don’t think it should, and if you take a look at our memory foam fun bags you’ll notice that this is very much something for the daytime.

Of course bean bags have been around for years, and are popular with both children and adults. They make a great alternative to a chair, allowing you to snuggle in a comfortable position, ideal for reading for example. But these days it seems that a growing number of people are using beanbags and similar products for when they are playing computer games on games consoles.

Sitting on a chair, pillow or beanbag for considerable lengths of time whilst enjoying the experience of being immersed in a computer-generated world may well feel comfortable to begin with, but after a while beanbags tend to heat up and become uncomfortably warm, and chairs can simply feel hard, sending certain parts of your anatomy distinctly numb.

If you or your children enjoy playing computer games on games consoles such as a PlayStation, Wii or XBox and you are currently using either the floor, a chair or a beanbag then you may not be doing your back or neck much good, and you may well feel uncomfortable after a while. A much better alternative is a memory foam fun bag.

A memory foam fun bag is effectively a beanbag which is made using the same memory foam as mattresses and pillows. This means that it adapts and conforms to the shape of your body as a result of your body’s heat. You are supported evenly and comfortably, without straining your back and without pressure points being generated in places which may be rather more sensitive than others.

Another benefit of memory foam is that although it adapts to heat, it doesn’t heat up itself. In fact the heat is dissipated very efficiently, meaning that memory foam does not feel uncomfortably warm even though you may be sitting on it for some considerable time. This helps to draw heat away from those parts which may become sweaty and achy after a long period of time playing your favourite games.

So whether it is you or your children who manage to enjoy long sessions gaming, consider swapping to a memory foam beanbag to help support your back and joints more safely, and provide a great deal more comfort regardless of how long it takes you to beat your high score.

I don’t know whether you watched the London Marathon again this Sunday but I’m always astonished at how many people manage to complete it, often wearing the most outrageous fancy dress costumes. But for all the pain and discomfort which necessarily goes with running over 26 miles on a hard surface, perhaps the worst pain is still to come.

With any intensive sports activity, from aerobic classes to running, and from weight training and weight lifting to dance classes, the longer term pain and discomfort can come from the healing process your body needs to go through afterwards. Often this can take several days, depending upon the severity of the sports activity. Certainly anybody who ran the London Marathon will still be very much in the recovery stage, and will almost certainly find that over the next few days their muscles and joints are still complaining.

If you enjoy your sports, whatever they might be, and you often find that the next day or next few days leave you feeling achy, stiff and sore then it might well be worth considering swapping your standard mattress for a memory foam mattress or a memory foam mattress topper.

The reason is because a memory foam mattress offers key advantages which can significantly help to improve the efficiency with which your body repairs itself after an intensive sporting activity. Not only that, but if you have a forthcoming sporting event than a memory foam mattress can help to prepare you more effectively by increasing your body’s ability to gather strength.

As far as the recovery is concerned, your body generates a hormone whilst you are asleep which aids The repair of any damage or strained tissues such as muscles. This means that the better the quality of your sleep, the more of this hormone can be produced, and the longer your body has to repair and recover.

An ordinary sprung mattress will cause pressure points, and throughout the night your body detects the fact that it is unevenly supported. In order to relieve the build-up of pressure on places such as shoulders and hips you will subconsciously turnover and move about. However this movement brings you up out of deep sleep, and may even briefly wake you up altogether. This interrupts the healing and repair process and can significantly delay your recovery by several days.

Memory foam mattresses work a different way, using the heat of your body to mould and conform to the shape of your body in order to provide you with a completely even and uniform support. This means that you benefit from both firmness and flexibility, being supported from top to toe without any pressure points. Inevitably you will be much less likely to feel the need to move at night, enabling your body to take full advantage of the time you are asleep to repair the damage to muscles and ligaments.

But of course it is also at night that your body and mind regain the energy needed to cope with the following day. If you have a forthcoming sporting activity such as a race or competition then it is important you get sufficient quality sleep the night before so that you are fully energised and prepared. Memory foam mattresses and toppers significantly increase the amount of time you are in a deep sleep, helping you to feel revitalised when you wake up.

So whether you are looking at improving the efficiency with which you recover from sporting activities, or you are looking at improving the quality of your sleep in advance of sports activities, a memory foam mattress offers significant advantages compared to standard sprung mattresses. If you want a spring in your step, lose the springs at night!

Here is an intriguing suggestion: a memory foam mattress might just possibly save your life. How? Let me explain.

Increasingly these days we all live very busy lives, cramming more and more into every single day. Our work, our family, our home, our friends and our interests all compete for every minute of our day. It is not surprising therefore that many of us become quite tired. But whilst we might be convincing ourselves that we are getting enough sleep, the truth is that it isn’t the amount of sleep you get which helps to combat this tiredness.

You might well go to sleep at what you think is a reasonable time, and you might set your alarm for six, seven or even eight hours later. But the problem with having such busy lives with so many ideas, thoughts, memories and plans racing through our minds, dropping off to sleep quickly isn’t always easy. But even this isn’t the end of the difficulty, because even while you are asleep things can still be going through your head, and you may not be getting the quality of sleep you need to be able to cope adequately the following day.

You see there are two basic types of sleep. There is normal sleep, often called simply light sleep, and then there is deep sleep, usually called REM sleep. During light sleep your body is able to rest, recover and repair itself, but your mind isn’t actually getting the rest it needs. REM sleep, or rapid eye movement sleep, is when we dream. It is when our minds sort out and filter all of the memories, ideas, plans, worries and experiences of the day.

If you don’t get enough of this deep sleep then your brain very quickly becomes saturated, and tired. So even if you had eight hours of sleep last night, if you didn’t have enough deep sleep during those eight hours then your brain will quickly begin to struggle, making you feel tired, lethargic and not at your best. Hardly the best way to feel if you are going to sit behind the wheel of a couple of tons of metal hurtling at 70 miles an hour.

A quick look online just showed me that within just the last 24 hours there have been well over 1000 news stories and reports about road traffic accidents caused by somebody falling asleep at the wheel. In a huge number of cases when someone falls asleep at the wheel, the resulting accident is often fatal. Few of us will quickly forget that tragic incident a couple of months ago involving a whole coach of schoolchildren returning from their ski trip.

So how can a memory foam mattress help to increase the number of hours per night which you spend in a deep sleep, helping to alleviate any lethargy or tiredness the following day? The answer is simply by allowing you to feel much more comfortable, and less liable to toss and turn in your sleep.

Most mattresses inevitably cause pressure points. This is particularly evident if you have a spring mattress, where the springs will push up against particular parts of your body. Initially this won’t feel uncomfortable at all, but after a while your body detects this pressure and subconsciously encourages you to shift position. This shifting position brings you up out of deep sleep, and interrupts or delays the REM sleep your brain needs.

A memory foam mattress does not cause pressure points, instead supporting your body evenly. This means that when you sleep on a memory foam mattress you are very unlikely to feel any need to roll over or move about. This encourages you to enter deep sleep sooner, and to enjoy more of this essential deep sleep per night.

So if you often tend to find yourself feeling sleepy or lethargic during the day, even though you believe you’ve had enough sleep, and if you are required to get behind the wheel of a car or other form of transport, then switching to a memory foam mattress could very well help to protect you from the risk of being involved in an accident.

There are an enormous amount of people who suffer with allergies that some of us others can only imagine.  Some people can only eat certain foods, some people can only wear certain materials, and some people have incredibly adverse reactions to particles in the air; primarily dust.  This is a nightmare to live with, but today there are treatments and preventative measures that can be taken.  One such measure is the use of memory foam.

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