Perhaps you envy people who can afford a memory foam mattress. You know how it's said to contour to your body at night, providing support so that you can sleep in comfort, and then it returns to its natural shape when you get up, fully rested. If only you could afford a mattress like that! But alas, you can't spare that much money because these mattresses really are very expensive. However, you might be able to afford a memory foam mattress topper and experience many of the same benefits.

Before looking at any memory foam mattress toppers or pads, do some research. To begin with, you need to be sure that your own original bed is in good enough shape to accommodate a memory foam mattress pad or topper. Your underlying mattress needs to be of moderate firmness (neither too soft nor too hard) and above all it must be very flat, with no dips in it and no "hammock" in the center. This is important because of the properties inherent in the visco memory foam of the topper itself.

What makes memory foam work as well as it does is because of the millions of tiny cells that soften with your body heat and gradually change shape to conform to your own contours. In a standard memory foam mattress, the heat only extends down about 3 inches, so that the underlying layer remains firm, in its original shape, providing support. This is why you need a firm, uniform underlying mattress if you are going to put a memory foam topper over your existing mattress. But it also means that if you buy a mattress topper from 3 to 5 inches in thickness, you'll experience the effect of a full memory foam bed. Keep in mind, though, that if you go over 4 inches or so, the expense will start adding up almost to the full cost of a complete bed.

Buying a mattress topper of memory foam should allow you to experience most of the benefits of a full bed, provided you take heed of all these important factors. If you've got a flat, firm underlying mattress, combined with a topper of good thickness (not to mention the density, which should be about 5 pounds per cubic foot of mattress), then you should be able to enjoy the gentle contouring of the foam mattress enhancer, along with good underlying support.