Mattress Smarts 101 for High-Performance Sleep with Jack Dell’Accio

You're listening to the Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey. And guys, I'm going to talk about what I have slept on for a while and then I'm going to compare it here and then we're going to go into our performance enhancement. Like what mattresses can do for sleep and recovery. I've had, you know, a variety of mattresses. And because I am a biohacker and because I used to have a lot of musculoskeletal pain, like more than most people will ever understand, partly from lectins and oxalates and mold toxins and chronic fatigue and all. But it used to feel like I had a candle burning between my shoulder blades all the time. I mean, I would just get used to it, but it was 7 or 8 out of 10 pain just all the time, just like, just grit your teeth and just go through the day really draining. I don't know if I even talked about that that much, but it was not a good thing and it was toxin related. And then I, I said, all right, maybe I need a really soft mattress. I would spend money on mattresses. And that master's topper I talked about, that made things worse. Eventually I settled on sleeping on a very, very hard, like neoprene from a wetsuit. There's an even harder version of that that barely moves when you push on it. And I sleep on like a one inch thing of that essentially on the floor. It's on a platform that's tilted because I like to raise the height of my bed. So it's like a caveman would sleep. Really. Now I'm built a certain way. I like to think kind of like an athlete. The New York Times said I'm almost muscular. So there. Call me that, but I'm a big guy. I don't know. But that's worked for me. But since then, I tried a variety of masters that I really like, and I like it. But then I'm like, I find, okay, I've tested this for a month or two and it feels good. But then I kind of migrate back to sleeping on essentially the floor. I have a very tolerant wife, guys. So what I'm doing now is I'm testing out the very firmest of the essentia. And so if I'm really liking what I see and I'll report back to you guys, it's going to take 60, 90 days to really know for sure. But part of my issue with this is that closed cell neoprene is not off gassing after I've had it for this amount of time, it's. There's no smell at all. So for me to be able to find a Kevlar coated, actually properly made bed, it really matters. Because I have played around with some various allegedly good latex beds. Never had the kind of results I wanted. Mostly because when they ship them, they're compressing them the same way you do. You vacuum seal it so it's easy to ship, which is cool. But then they're not very dense. And that's great if you're a vegan guy who weighs 140 pounds and low testosterone and no bone density. But I'm like 230 if I do a few pull ups and my bone density is very high and you put me on a bed like that, it's like wearing vegan pants. I didn't want leggings. I wanted pants with the hard thing here. Like hard firm. I guess mattress companies shouldn't say hard. That's bad marketing. But with the firm mattress, that's the kind of thing that you're. What you said 25% of the NHL sleeps on your mattresses.

Yeah, over 25% of NHL.

Are they all on the firm one or are they like the soft squishy types?

It all depends on their posture.

Tell me about this.

Yes. So ultimately, your posture really dictates what you need. The key is to eliminate negative posture.

Not the size of your ass.

To be really clear, completely posture and not the size of your ass or your gut.

I've been trying to put junk in my trunk.

And basically because you want to eliminate that negative space. And negative space is what we need for support on your posture. See, you're thinking it's because you're built strong, you're built dense, but also with your posture, you need a flatter surface. So basically when we're developing our mattresses, you know, simply said soft, medium, firm, but really our density is always high. In fact, our softest mattress has higher density than our firmest mattress. Because.

Interesting.

What I'm doing is I'm just changing the elasticity.

So it's not the amount of air, it's how stretchy the fibers are.

Exactly.

And it's different. All the other mattress comes just add more air.

Right, Exactly. The method of conventional foam or conventional mattresses, by adding air and you look at the fibers, if they want a soft mattress, they'll have a looser feel fiber, but those are not durable because the air eventually gets compressed out and so overuse. Right. So those products, if you're not feeling the pain, six months, you're feeling them two or three years later because they don't last. They don't last. So for me, durability is how long does it perform for you? Not, you know, because people change it many years after that they don't perform. So on a posture, a pro athlete, you're saying it does change. It doesn't necessarily need to be firm unless your posture dictates its firm. Simply said, the flatter your lower back, the less elasticity you need. The more curved your lower back, the higher elasticity you need.

And the higher elasticity is tied to.

Well, that's where you'll sink in and it'll eliminate that negative stress.

So you're going to have a soft, higher elasticity mattress or more elastic mattress. If you have a really heavy curve in your low back. If you have a flatter low back, then you want a firm mattress.

Exactly. For a mattress in our product, it will be less elasticity, but you're still benefiting from the pressure. Redistribution is important because what you're getting is that flatter back is really driving your mid body into these mattresses that are too soft for you. And so that's what's really happening. You're not properly aligned because of your. And more so because if you're dense, bone structure, more muscle, all these things kind of, if you're on the wrong surface, enhance the problem.

Okay, that makes so much sense and I'm eager to try this. And the implication here is that what your mother ate before and during pregnancy when she was carrying you in some way determines how firm of a mattress you should get.

Yep.

Because higher grain consumption, lower nutrient consumption actually is documented. This is Weston A Price research in the Better Baby book actually can determine how flat your spine is. So you get a flatter spine with less of a curve from mom's diet. So thanks, mom, for the firm mattress.

You want to know how I consult with pro athletes? I don't even have to see them. We have a discussion over the phone and we talk about personality.

No way.

Personality is linked to your posture.

So you can say by personality what your mattress from. Okay, you got to tell me more about this. This is awesome.

So it was interesting because I was working with with the medical team of the Montreal Canadiens back in the day a few years back, and we were outfitting their whole team with essentia mattresses. It was a decision by management. And as I'm working with their trainers and then I'm working with their medical team, one of them was really, he Helped players with injury correct their postures. And he was identifying their postures through their personality questions.

Wow.

And over 1 million case studies. And. And it was right on every single time. And so we did it during the. During that off season. I hired. I onboarded them at Essentia. I got guys, we need to learn this. We need to be able to. I can't, you know, fly around everywhere. The. To meet all these players and fit them for a mattress. So if this technology, if this concept idea works, that would be fantastic. And in fact, right now, now we have an automate here at the conference. We're offering free evaluations for everyone, where people answer 25 questions and we know their muscular strengths. Muscular weaknesses.

Is that on the website too? Like on the Essentia website?

It's just getting on the Essentia website.

I didn't see it when you were. I did a lot of research to make sure that I wanted to have you on that. You weren't going to try and sell me a mat?

No, we were doing this only for pro athletes.

Only for pros.

It was only for pros. When we were coming to the conference, our team says, well, let's just digitize the whole thing. So for this conference, we were making it available to everybody. And following the conference, it's part of our website after that.

That's actually really cool. And you have some kind of validation clinically or this just observational or.

Well, basically it was the thesis and all of the case studies by Dr. Guillemont from the Montreal Canadiens.

Okay, so It's. Yes, it's Dr. Guillemont's work. All right, that's pretty cool. So tell me the top five personality traits of someone who sleeps on a soft mattress. Do they like kale?

Extrovert.

They're an extrovert. Okay.

Yeah, so they're definitely an extrovert. Gets onto the softer mattress. Geez, I'd have to go back. I don't even know everything off I had because.

Plus, it's a survey with lots of little things.

Yeah. Like I said, it was Dr. Guimon's study. All we've done is. What we've done is based on his results.

Okay, got it.

We made the mattresses that matched the results, the formulations that matched it. And we're basically making, I guess it's 264 different latex formulations for every layer to be able to adapt to it. And we've had such, you know, a great story from one of the players that used to play in Colorado. We were making these pro athletes model, each side was matched to their posture and personality. So the player is on one side, his spouse is on the other. Right. And when he got on at the surface, it's one mattress. You can't feel the difference that there's two mattresses on the inside going on. So he got on the mattress. And a lot of these players, they immediately recover from certain ailments when they get on our mattress immediately.

Like in a week of sleeping on.

It, sometimes in days. Yeah. And so, you know, on my next visit to Colorado, I go and see him and Matt, how's it going? I goes, jack, you know what? I really was questioning your process. I didn't. It just sounded weird. Personality. Myself, my wife and the mattress felt the same, but I was feeling good. I was feeling great. My neck pain was gone. And we just for kicks, we swapped sides. And after a couple of days, it was not the same. I was getting a neck pain. And he goes, but. And go. Imagine that, Matt. And you are still on an essentia side. You still had a great mattress that you're on, but it wasn't tuned for your posture as your side was. And so he. That was his own little realization how. How that. How that made a difference.