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How Does Muscle Memory Relate to Your Mattress?

Posted by Lauren Juarez on

How Does Muscle Memory Relate to Your Mattress?

What is muscle memory? To answer this question, we need a better understanding of muscle memory. Muscle memory is defined as “the ability to reproduce a particular movement without conscious thought, acquired as a result of frequent repetition of that movement”. Some examples of muscle memory are: typing on a keyboard, riding a bicycle, playing an instrument, martial arts, dancing, and even making a favorite dish for dinner. Muscle memory, a scientifically verified phenomenon, relates to both sleep and your mattress.

A common way of explaining muscle memory further is exercise. Did you know that not only are our muscles quite large but they’re also one of the very few multinucleate cells in our bodies? What does “multinucleate” mean? Multinucleate means that each cell in our muscles, unlike most other cells in our bodies, have more than one nucleus - multiple nuclei, in fact. So, if you’re exercising by way of resistance training, for example, new nuclei are added to the muscle cells themselves, and that is what allows them to grow larger. If you exercised regularly and then decided to take a break, your muscles would lose strength and become weaker. Now, if you were resume training, the whole business of adding those nuclei is “skipped” because they’re already present and ready to go.

Muscle memory is synonymous with motor learning, which is a type of implicit memory, or unconscious memory, and long-term memory which helps in performing types of tasks that don’t require conscious thought. In other words, the memories guide the processes we perform and is often located just below the level of our conscious awareness. When a movement is repeated several times, a long-term memory is created, making it a habit and allowing you to execute whatever that movement is without even thinking about it. Pretty cool, right?

Want to know more about your own muscle’s memory? Then it’s time to have visit with your mattress. Whether your current mattress is a perfect match for you or not can easily be felt. Tightening or aching of muscles when you awake is a sure sign that your sleep surface is working against you. This is because the support of your mattress could either be too firm, or not firm enough. What happens in this scenario is that your muscles compensate and struggle to bring you relief, which is akin to white blood cells fighting off an infection. By forcing your body to adapt to the wrong mattress, you are teaching your body’s muscle memory to be a specific way. Over time you are taking from your body what your mattress should be providing. As a result, your body reacts by tossing and turning throughout the night in search of that relief and is causing your muscles harm. Your body can’t stand the condition you’ve been putting it in and is telling you that it needs relief. Tightening of muscles causes stagnation within your circulatory system causing issues with its blood flow and interrupting your body’s ability to heal itself. And we all know that a great night’s sleep is an essential part of healing.Our bodies have an innate understanding of what they need to function ideally, and will tell you what those needs are, if you listen closely to how your body feels.

If you’re tossing and turning, waking up with aches and pains, and sleeping on that same old mattress you’ve had for 10 or 20 years, then it’s past time to get a new one. When choosing a new mattress, keep in mind that the type of mattress you choose is pivotal to your sleeping experience. And breaking in that mattress is just as important. Patience is a virtue, my friends, and retraining your muscle’s memory is no easy feat. Remember, your body adjusts to its environment and when there’s a sudden change, it’ll take some time to accommodate.

With the technologies of today, finding the proper support is easier than ever. So, give your local Mattress By Appointment® a call today and let us help you to retrain your muscle’s memory.