Goldilocks Syndrome: Finding a Mattress That's Just Right

By: Christine Haran
Last Reviewed on: October 13, 2004
People waking up in the morning with back pain often curse their mattress. And for years most orthopedic surgeons have been recommending a firm mattress to their back patients. But a new Spanish study suggests that a medium-firm mattress might be the best choice for the many people who suffer from low-back pain.

The study, published in the November 15th issue of The Lancet, evaluated 313 adults with chronic low-back pain that was not associated with any underlying medical condition. Half of the group was randomly assigned to a medium-firm mattress and half to a firm mattress. Researchers found that after 90 days people who slept on the medium-firm mattress had less pain in bed, less pain on rising and less disability than those with firm mattresses.

So should you throw out your mattress? Before you do, you might consider some of the questions the study didn?t address. Steven Atlas, MD, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, points out that we still don?t know the long-term benefits of a medium-firm mattress, or the value of mattresses softer than those included in the study.


Dr. Atlas also emphasizes that getting a good night?s sleep can help ease back pain, and that the mattress is just one factor that can affect sleep quality. "Sleep position, medications and other medical problems can all cause difficulty sleeping." he says. "I?m always cautious about asking a patient to invest hundreds of dollars in a new mattress for the explicit goal of improving back pain; this study does not change that caution."