Today, we’re sharing everything you need to know about this mattress type, how to choose the best hybrid mattress for you, and six brands that could be your prince or princess charming. “If we don’t have a comfortable mattress providing us adequate support, we won’t get good-quality sleep, which has a cascade of effects,” adds Doug Cary, Ph.D., a physiotherapist and sleep posture researcher based in Australia. “There is no system in the human body that is not affected by lack of sleep....

People who have chronic lower back pain experience higher rates of sleep disturbances than people who don’t. And if your mattress is too soft, it likely isn’t helping the problem. Designed to lie on top of your existing mattress, a mattress topper provides greater comfort, pressure relief, and support—all without having to fork over the funds for a whole new mattress. To learn more about how a mattress topper can help with back pain, we spoke with experts and scoured the selection....

And considering an alarming 41% of American adults1 meet the criteria for insufficiency (meaning they have levels lower than 30 ng/ml) and approximately 92% of men and more than 97% of women aren’t even getting 400 IU2 of this essential fat-soluble vitamin from their daily diet, it’s well-deserving of the attention. Given how tricky it is to get ample amounts of the nutrient from food and sunlight alone, taking a supplement is ultimately the route to achieving and sustaining an ideal vitamin D level—which is 50 ng/ml or higher—for life....

Awareness of your thyroid hormone levels can be key to unlocking a deeper understanding of your health, especially when you consider more than 60% of people with thyroid disease are completely unaware of their condition. Luckily at-home testing has made it easier than ever to test your thyroid levels. (Of course, it’s also a blood test you should ask for at your annual visit.) Often cheaper and more accessible than an office visit, at-home thyroid tests check the same hormone levels as the tests offered by your healthcare practitioner—we’ll get more into that later—and are offered by a variety of brands....

Awareness of your thyroid hormone levels can be key to unlocking a deeper understanding of your health, especially when you consider more than 60% of people with thyroid disease are completely unaware of their condition. Luckily at-home testing has made it easier than ever to test your thyroid levels. (Of course, it’s also a blood test you should ask for at your annual visit.) Often cheaper and more accessible than an office visit, at-home thyroid tests check the same hormone levels as the tests offered by your healthcare practitioner—we’ll get more into that later—and are offered by a variety of brands....

Your hormones are made in multiple different endocrine glands including your brain, adrenals, pancreas, thyroid, parathyroid, reproductive glands, as well as your digestive tract. The key to proper hormone function comes down to balance. If hormones are either too high or too low, it can spell trouble for the rest of your overall health. There is so much information on the web about different diets designed to bring relief to even the most chronic health problems....

“Primary emotions are basic emotions that humans are born with that have been wired into our brains,” Espinoza says. “Along the outer edges of the emotion wheel, you’ll find low-intensity emotions such as acceptance, distraction, boredom, and so on. As you move toward the center, the color on the emotion wheel deepens and milder emotions become your basic emotions.” Psychologist Robert Plutchik, Ph.D., created one of the most popular versions of the emotion wheel, a flower-shaped diagram to visually illustrate our emotions and their various, adjacent relationships to each other....