Healthy sleeping is an all-encompassing term often used when talking about diverse aspects of a good night’s sleep. It often loses sight of the overview and the importance of the individual aspects. Our view is as follows:

We think a healthy sleep is only possible in the correct sleeping position. A correct sleeping position supports the back and neck and allows the body to recuperate. A bad sleeping position not only hinders the daily recovery of the back, it could also be the cause of problems and complaints.

Moreover, an adapted sleeping environment is also important for a healthy rest. This is called the ‘sleeping climate’: the ambient temperature, humidity regulation, hypoallergenic properties, height of the bed and the like.

The principle of our sleep system is always the sleeper. In order to understand what a ‘supported’ or ‘relaxed’ back is, we need to take a quick look at the anatomy of the back.

In the side view, we can see that a human back consists of the following curvatures: the neck lordosis (concave), the chest kyphosis (convex), the lumbar lordosis (concave) and pelvic kyphosis (convex). The most important thing to remember here is: the profile of a relaxed back is not straight!

A frontal look at the back shows it is straight from this viewpoint. However, it is noticeable that the curvature of the back in profile is more or less identical to a person’s silhouette, namely: the curves of the neck, shoulders, loins and pelvis. This ensures that an adapted sleep system can support both curvatures in principle.

The first specific task of a sleep system (to achieve a good sleeping position) is to accommodate a completely relaxed sleeper. After all: once you’re asleep, you no longer have any control over your position!

This task is initially performed by the bed base, in our case a slatted base. The ‘anchor point’ of the Waveflex slatted bed base is a raised lumbar zone. This zone is flanked on both sides by lowered zones: the pelvic zone and the shoulder zone. The shoulder zone is the lowest and also has the least firm action (significant freedom of movement of the rubbers). The lowered zones are broad enough to accommodate sleepers of various heights. To allow precision adjustment of the slatted base for each sleeper, the compression of three pairs of slats can be adjusted.

The mattress should complete the effect of the slatted base and should therefore not be too firm! (firm mattresses balance out the height differences too much and are therefore a disadvantage!). A waveflex mattress typically consists of 5 zones, each in line with the slatted base. The zones for the legs, loins and head are the least compressible. The zones for the pelvis and shoulders are extremely compressible.

The pillow is the last part of the puzzle. This should ensure that the sleeper’s neck is also supported sufficiently and stays in a neutral position. A waveflex pillow is a very thin pillow with raised ends. These raised areas serve to support the curvature of the neck. (two raised parts at different thicknesses to offer two sizes in one pillow).

Thanks to the great harmoniousness between the slatted bed base and the mattress (with the pillow as finishing touch for the neck!) you achieve the ideal posture correction.

Once the correct position of the spine has been achieved (thanks to the combination of the slatted base and mattress), it is necessary to eliminate any of the sleeper’s pressure points to guarantee the position can be prolonged (pressure points lead to ‘restless’ sleeping. It means the sleeper changes position frequently to prevent pain).

The mattress is solely responsible for this task. As mentioned before, a waveflex mattress is made up of 5 zones with varying levels of softness (not firmness!) to alleviate the pressure on the sleeper as efficiently as possible.

The last step is a task for the sleeper: to adopt the right habits when going to sleep and to adopt the correct sleeping position.

It is often said that the correct sleeping position differs for each person and depends on personal preference. We at waveflex wholeheartedly disagree with that. As mentioned before, the starting point of the waveflex sleep system is the anatomy of the sleeper and this is generally equal for each person. As a result, there is definitely a universal and ergonomic perfect sleeping position.

The ideal sleeping position is in a relaxed, neutral position for the back and both legs slightly pulled up. The relaxed, neutral position for the back guarantees maximum recuperation during sleep. Pulling up both legs is required to allow for a correct position of the pelvis (the last part of the spine) and to protect the lower back.

This position is easiest to achieve when lying on your side (when using an adapted sleep system like the waveflex!).

A second option is to adopt this position from lying on your back. It makes pulling the legs up somewhat more difficult, but this can be achieved with the use of an electrically adjustable slatted base or by placing thick pillows underneath the knees.

Another option preferred by many people, is to sleep face-down. This is strongly advised against! Not only is there not a single sleep system with the correct adaptations to keep the spine neutral in this position, it is also very bad for the neck and brain. Sleeping on the stomach requires the sleeper to turn his or her head far to the side. This causes huge stresses to the neck and constriction of blood supply to the brain.

The best way to evaluate a sleep system for a specific sleeper is to take a photo of the sleeper on this sleep system and then turning the photo 90 degrees to better see whether the back is straight. This way, it is possible to do a quick visual check on whether the back is in neutral position.