Visco Elastic Foam Mattress

Visco elastic foam mattress. What a great name for a mattress. Many people when they see this written for the first time really have no idea exactly what it is. It sounds very complicated. But this is actually the more complex name for that type of mattress that we have all come to love, adore and sleep well upon, the memory foam mattress. Yes they are one in the same. Actually when you break down the name visco elastic foam mattress, it’s constituent parts begin to make sense.

The visco word comes from viscous. We all know of viscous substances like honey that are liquid of sorts but move slowly. The best way to describe it is that if we had a bath of water we could put our hand directly into the water, which is not viscous, without any real resistance. Alternatively, if we had a tub of honey and tried to put our hand into it, we would literally have to push our hand into it with a great deal of resistance. But it would eventually move into the tub. A visco elastic foam mattress is kind of like that. One of the great pleasures of a memory foam mattress is to push your hand into it. It has that soft resistance, yet will still give into the pressure you apply.

The elastic word describes its elastic properties. We’ve all experienced elastic properties. The rubber band is the perfect example where as children we would pull back an elastic band and then let one end go whilst aiming it at a friend to see if it would hit them. The property elasticity that allows us to do this is characterized by the fact that the rubber band will always return to its natural state, which is not extended, and it often does this quickly. Again the visco elastic foam mattress also does this (although not very quickly). Once you have pushed your hand into the memory foam mattress and created an impression, if you then remove your hand, the visco elastic foam mattress will eventually return to its original state, eliminating any trace of your hand’s previous occupation.

It is these two wonderful properties that give the memory foam mattress it’s remarkable comfortable features. As you lay down on one, your body slowly sinks into the mattress as the visco elastic foam reacts to both the weight of your body and your body heat and gradually moulds itself to the contours of your body. How delectable. No wonder visco elastic foam mattresses have become so popular over the past twenty five years. They also make them in king size, queen size, double and single beds size. In fact they’ve become so popular that visco memory foam is now used in all sorts of items including memory foam pillows and memory foam mattress toppers. My favourite is the visco elastic memory foam travel pillow. Nothing like heading off on holidays in the car and after having been on the road for a couple of hours, just lying back into a visco elastic foam travel pillow and letting sleep take over (with my husband driving of course).

In fact visco elastic foam mattresses are so comfortable that they now use them in a range of medical environments. An example of this includes hospital beds where the patient is effectively bedridden. Normal mattresses usually do not provide even support under the body – some areas take more of the body’s weight than others. Over a short period of time, the blood flow to these areas will be restricted causing bedsores. Because a visco mattress moulds itself to your body, it provides even support for you entire body, reducing the areas where bed sores may occur.

We can actually thank NASA for this wonderful invention. They started a project with the intention of improving the safety of aircraft cushions and memory foam is essentially what they came up with. They released it to the general public in the early 1980’s and a company called Fagerdala World Foams created the first visco elastic foam mattress in 1991. It was called the  Tempur-Pedic Swedish Mattress and led to the worldwide acceptance of the humble memory foam as an excellent choice for the manufacture of mattresses. The “Temur” part of the name came from the original name for visco elastic foam that they used whilst it was still in development at NASA.

Whilst the visco elastic foam mattress provides many advantages with comfort, it also resists parasites including dust mites. This is great news for people who suffer from asthma or have other respiratory problems. The other side of the coin though, is that memory foam mattresses use a lot of fire retardant in their manufacture since the memory foam is by nature extremely flammable. Whilst the fire retardant stops the foam mattress from ever catching fire, it can also cause problems for asthmatics in the first few months of use.

Visco elastic foam mattresses also have a distinct chemical smell when they are first bought. This will disappear with time but again can be a problem for people with sensitive respiratory systems.