Choosing the best mattress is one of the most important investments you can make in your home. The right bed should cushion your body without feeling too soft, support your spine to promote even alignment and minimize pressure on your shoulders, hips and back, and feel comfortable enough for you to sleep through the night. Today’s mattresses are designed to meet specific sleep needs, with soft or medium-soft models ideal for side sleepers and firm or medium-firm beds suited for back and stomach sleepers or those suffering from chronic pain. But with so many options on the market, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. Fortunately, many brands offer generous risk-free sleep trials that let you test out your new bed for up to a year.
If you can nail down the construction and firmness you need, it’s worth waiting for a mattress sale to save money. Many online and in-store mattress retailers offer sales throughout the year, but some of the biggest occur during federal holidays like Presidents Day, Memorial Day and Labor Day and around Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
The best mattress deals are usually for hybrid innerspring or memory foam mattresses that offer a combination of features. These include cooling layers to dissipate heat and a layer of specialized foam that contours to your body for better support and pressure relief. Some also include motion isolation, which reduces the tendency of beds to sway when you move or turn over during sleep or when you get out of bed.
Our favorite all-foam option is the Leesa, an OG mattress-in-a-box brand that has updated its basic model since 2014. It now features a stretch-knit cooling cover infused with phase-change material to absorb and dissipate heat as well as a layer of what the company calls ‘LSA 200 technology’ that’s supposed to be more responsive than standard memory foam. Beneath that is a slab of memory foam, which contours to the body for that distinctive memory-foam hug, followed by another layer of the brand’s trademarked Avena foam to prevent sinking and a base of the ‘Essential Support Layer’ for bounce and stability.
The Nectar is an excellent all-foam choice for anyone who’s looking for that signature memory foam ‘hug’, as well as solid support and good pressure relief across the body. It does a great job of mitigating motion transfer, too, making it suitable for couples with restless partners. However, if you’re a hot sleeper, you might want to consider a hybrid or latex mattress with a cooler surface feel.