Sleeping on a Firm Surface How and Why

Q.
It seems so counterintuitive. How can a big soft bed be uncomfortable and a board be comfortable?

A.
The soft modern bed is like a wheelchair for an ailing society. It is only comfortable is your definition of comfortable is NUMBING, where you do no work and it does the work for you. You have no interaction. It just solves all you problems for awhile. It is actually doing several things that are counter-productive.

1–Makes breathing more shallow by collapsing the lungs (putting pressure on them) because your back sinks in. Blood is therefore less oxygenated.

2–Hampers circulation of blood and craniosacral fluid, because there is pressure on the muscles. This lowers metabolism, creating more stress response, hampering deeper sleep.

3–Keeps the body’s poor alignment from correcting itself. When you feel a pressure point on a hard surface, you have to shift and relax that part of your body. You make adjustments until you are comfortable. Gravity has a chance to widen and decompress your spine and joints. This is nature’s biofeedback system. There is an active role of the brain with the senses. You can actually HEAR cracking as your spine is subluxing, which is the goal of a chiropractic treatment. You reestablish the mind/body connection.

Q.
I’ve been looking for the perfect mattress for about a year. I’ve bought one or two but they didn’t work for me. I still toss and turn and don’t sleep well. All these mattress companies are saying the opposite of you–which is why I’m curious to try your solution. They are trying to align your spine and create zero pressure points. How can you say a hard surface can improve sleep when you would feel all these pressure points? Wouldn’t it kill your hips and shoulders when side sleeping? It would be so uncomfortable.

A.
My hypothesis is that a hard surface puts us back into a natural setting which is actually MORE relaxing than a modern soft bed. And I am talking about a scientific definition of relaxation which can be measured by EEG, showing the brain goes into a state of deeper brain waves. Also, other health indicators like lower stress hormone and higher relaxation hormones, lower blood pressure, heart rate–the relaxation response and homeostasis.

First off, you wouldn’t sleep well if you were uncomfortable and feeling pressure points. I’m not advocating putting ourselves through torture. I’m talking about re-learning an instinct that we have lost. This is a process which is the exact kind of process that happens when we start going barefoot after a lifetime of wearing shoes. That is the instinct to relax the body evenly so there are no pressure points. Instead of relying on the mattress to NUMB the pressure points, this new approach calls for a RELAXATION of the pressure points so then there would be none. You basically flatten out your body to fit the surface on which you are lying–instead of making the surface flatten out to fit your body.