Memory Foam Topper

A Brief History Of Memory Foam

Visco elastic polyurethane foam, also known as memory foam, is a relatively new invention. At least for the non-IT or consumer electronics industries. This interesting material is actually a type of foam, but a very dense foam. Its most obvious ability is that it temporarily retains the shape of anything that you press into it. But its most useful ability is somewhat less obvious - memory foam is very, very good at distributing pressure.

This is, after all, the task that NASA had it developed to perform in the 1960s. Officially, it was invented to improve the safety of aircraft cushions. "Coincidentally", memory foam was invented in time for the Apollo project to send men to the moon. Sending men into space inside rockets required that those rockets be accelerated very fast. The great force exerted presses the astronauts against their seats very strongly. But to send men to the moon required an even more powerful rocket than had ever been used before - the Saturn V - still considered the most powerful rocket developed by Man. The acceleration was practically unimaginable, and memory foam cushions would help to spread the pressure of the forces pressing the astronauts back against their seats. Instead of having the pressure concentrated in certain locations where the body met the surface of the cushion (as in older materials), the memory foam distributed the forces throughout the seat.

This ability to redistribute pressure and hence reduce the forces reacting against the human body resting on it also makes memory foam ideal for use in hospital beds where patients had to lie immobile for long periods of time. While normal beds caused bedsores and water beds were expensive to maintain, memory foam mattresses were relatively economical for what they did. That is not to say that memory foam mattresses were cheap. They were not. However, they were cheaper than the previously used technology - water beds.

Why Memory Foam Toppers Help You Sleep Better

Obviously, what was good for these immobile patients is even better for someone who is healthy. This property of removing pressure from whatever was placed on top of it makes memory foam mattresses tremendously comfortable to lie on. So when NASA finally released their patents to the public domain in the 1980s, Fagerdala World Foams was one of the first companies which quickly ran with it - making a wide range of their beds, mattresses and pillows. Today, the Tempur memory foam mattress topper and Tempurpedic memory foam pillow are among some of their most famous products for the bedroom.

The great advantage of the Tempurpedic memory foam topper for an insomniac is that you do feel almost no pressure pressing back against you when you lie on it. This behavior is very different from that of conventional mattresses. At the same time, it provides proper support for your back, helping to preserve the healthy curvature and alignment of your spine. This is something most normal beds cannot do ... at least not both at the same time. These factors make sleeping on a memory foam topper very comfortable indeed - exactly like sleeping in a very soft bed. And yet, unlike a soft bed, you do not wake up with a sore back because your spine is well-supported - just like sleeping on a hard mattress. But the memory foam mattress pad is not a hard mattress. Somehow it manages to be both firm and soft at the same time.

Making comfortable beds and mattresses is clearly a profitable business. While Fagerdala is still a dominant force in the industry, they no longer enjoy their near-monopoly of years past. Strong new rivals have appeared to challenge the supremacy of the Tempurpedic memory foam mattress pad - the Serta memory foam mattress pad. Serta ultimate memory foam beds and pillows are considered as good as the original Tempur Pedic memory foam products, but are often listed at slightly lower prices.

All this competition among the makers of memory foam toppers and pillows is good for you and your insomnia. You get to buy a better memory foam pad for your bed at a lower price, you fall asleep faster, you sleep more deeply for a longer stretch of time and wake up well-rested and energetic.

But what if you still cannot afford to buy a memory foam mattress topper? Well, you can still stick to drinking warm milk before going to bed and counting sheep until you fall asleep. Or you can look for a memory foam clearance sale where you might be able to pick up an older model of memory foam topper for a steep discount. Or you can also look for Overstock memory foam online. At the very least, do your neck a favor and buy a Tempur memory foam pillow. And if you cannot fit a 3-inch memory foam mattress topper into your budget, just cut down on a few luxuries until you can save enough for a Serta memory foam Supreme 2" topper.