I currently have two residences - my main home and a “crash pad” apartment I use when I’m working. I’ve always slept on futon mattresses and I have them at both places, but the setup is different. At home I have a fairly nice futon mattress that’s never been folded and is quite thick and firm. It’s on a wood frame like a traditional bed, plus I’ve made it more firm by placing a board underneath. At the crash pad I have an old, relatively thin, lumpy futon mattress that’s just laying on the floor on a carpet remnant.
Recently, I spent a week at home and slept poorly. Lots of tossing and turning and waking up, despite no caffeine or alcohol in the evenings. Then I went back to work, had an easy day but with added stress at the end, ate a fast food burger for dinner and… slept like a baby.
Of course, I’m not controlling for other factors like noise. And you’d think my stress level would be higher while at work. Is it possible my body just prefers a lumpy futon on the floor? What else could it be? I’m on the verge of tossing my nice bed setup at home.
Hit the thrift store or used furniture place for a crappy used futon mattress and try that on your living room floor first. Then pitch your good stuff after you’re run the experiment under more controlled conditions.
Have you only noticed this recently? How long ago was the last change you made on your home futon arrangement? I wouldn’t jump into any changes without making sure that your home sleep issues are happening most of the time.
Could you maybe just need (or prefer) even more firmness than what your bed offers at home? Maybe the lumpy mattress on the floor is even more supportive? If you go to a mattress store, you should be able to lay on a few different mattresses for a few minutes to compare.
Anecdotally, through most of college, I didn’t have a bed and slept on a camping pad on the floor for several years. That was the best sleep I ever got, and no real mattress came close before or after, even the ultra-firm ones. I did find that the softer ones were especially bad for my sleep and my back.
Eventually I found a firm-enough (but still not ideal) real bed, but only because romantic partners demanded it (what posh princesses, sheesh).
Where do you sleep more often? I would bet that the less-used place just feels unfamiliar.
ISTR that studies have shown that your first night somewhere unfamiliar (i.e. not at home) is nearly always poor sleep, but once you’re used to it, and your lizard brain quits the “This is dangerous!” stuff, you sleep fine. It’s called the “first night effect”.
When you travel for a living, as both OP & I did / do, sleeping in unfamiliar places becomes your norm.
The effects you cite are real. For people for whom sleeping in a bed and room other than their own is a 2x/year experience. Make it 4x/week with each away night in a different place and the survey results will be different.
In a similar vein:
We have threads and threads on people who’re mightily discomfited by the semi-annual DST changes since they wake up at exactly the same clock time every day. Those of us for whom 2am is either wakeup time or getting off work time, sometimes both, don’t have that problem.
As LSL said, that’s not an issue for me. As it happens, I seem to be sleeping better at the crash pad, which I’m at infrequently lately - perhaps 25% of my time.
The last few nights have been better at home, I think because of better exercise. I’m going to work on that, but I’m also tempted to get rid of the bed frame. I think maybe I just like sleeping very close to the floor.