Recently I was talking with a friend about how it was time for me to buy a new mattress. I had been agonizing over whether to go with a traditional inner spring or spring for one of the new memory foam beds that are all the rage. Then the conversation turned to boxsprings. She asked me my professional opinion on whether or not one should throw in for a new boxspring when purchasing the new mattress.
And for a moment I was stunned as she explained how she just assumed I would know about these things as a bodyworker. This led me to quite a bit of research online.
As you might expect there are two different schools of thought on the issue. The Better Sleep Council, an industry-funded sleep organization, recommends purchasing the boxspring as the mattress and boxspring are engineered as a set and designed to work together optimally. This makes sense to me from an engineering point of view. That the organization making the recommendation is funded by the manufacturers is troubling though.
On the other side of the coin, industry professionals occasionally offer that as long as your existing boxspring isn’t warped or bowed (you can check it with a level) it’s okay to use. This also makes sense to me as platform beds serve the same purpose as a boxspring, a firm, level surface.
Having spent a tremendous amount of time and money yesterday while buying a new mattress, here is my personal opinion. If it’s been ten years since you purchased a new sleep system, the mattress and boxspring are probably going to be sold as a set unless you’re going with a platform bed in which case you don’t need a boxspring at all. Instead perhaps you should focus on finding the best mattress you can afford which is a different conversation for a different day.