What is visco foam? What does it have to do with the quality of my sleep?
Ever since the first of those memory foam mattress commercials appeared on television almost 10 years ago, the term "visco-elastic" has become a fairly common term that's identified with mattresses.
NASA foam is another term that has taken on meaning as a result of this marketing effort.
But just what does it mean?
The nice thing about this term is that you don't have to know or even care what it means to enjoy the benefits of it. In fact, you can determine the best visco foam mattress pretty easily.
Visco has to do with viscosity.
If you're talking about fluids, there are high viscosity fluids and low viscosity fluids.
Picture in your mind the image of pouring a glass of water from one jar to another. Got it? Okay, now picture that same scenario but this time your pouring molasses on a cold day. Do you see the difference?
Water is a low viscosity fluid and honey is a high viscosity fluid.
In the same way that temperature affects molasses, it also affects memory foam. In a colder environment, the material will be much easier to "stretch" and will take longer to return to it's original size and shape.
The opposite is true when it's introduced to a warmer environment.
The same way molasses gets "softer" when warmed, the foam softens in areas where you body heat is transferred into the temperature sensitive memory foam material.
Elastic just means that the material will return to its original shape after being stretched or deformed.
Memory foam materials fall about half way through the two definitions.
The only thing you really need to know about this foam is that millions of people have said they sleep better because of it.
Another characteristic of memory foam is its ability to spread body weight out evenly over its entire surface.
This has led to the phrase "weightless sleep" because it relieves pressure points on your body that are normally associated with a non-visco foam mattress.
