No doubt, there’s a time and place for kitchen counter, car, or shower sex. But most people do the majority of their boning in bed. And if their mattress isn’t comfortable? Well, that boning is going to be marked by pain rather than pleasure.
“Sex is just as much a mental thing as it is a physical thing, if not more so,” explains Drew O’Bannon, a sex and intimacy expert with Emma Sleep, the manufacturer of the Emma CliMax HybridEmma CliMax® Hybrid, a sex mattress created to celebrate real bodies and their intimate moments in bed. “So, if your mind is somewhere else because your back is uncomfortable on the mattress, or your body hurts, it’s going to be hard to stay in the moment and enjoy what you’re doing.”
Here’s the thing: The mattress you have sex on is also the mattress you sleep on. (Unless of course you have a separate sex room, in which case, kudos!) And the quality of your sleep can also impact your overall life — including your sex life.
Shelby Harris, Psy.D., a licensed clinical psychologist, clinical associate professor of neurology and psychiatry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Director of Sleep Health at Sleepopolis, explains: Poor sleep can lead to a greater risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes, and it can also cause issues with mood regulation, mental health, and more. “Poor sleep can also lead to irritability, stress, and anxiety that can lead to conflicts in your relationships that make sexual connection impossible or unappealing,” she says. In other words, you (don’t) snooze and you lose (out on sex).
So, when it comes to your mattress, both sex and sleep experts alike say it’s worth investing in a quality choice. “Spend what you can afford within your budget, but don’t skimp out on this luxury, as you are going to be spending a lot of time on it—after all, we spend an average of one third of our lives asleep,” says Wendy Troxel, Ph.D., a senior behavioral scientist, certified behavioral sleep medicine specialist, and author of Sharing the Covers: Every Couple’s Guide to Better Sleep.