Seven Surprising Reasons Your Sleep Surface & Sleep Environment May Not Be As Optimized As You Think, With Essentia Mattress CEO Jack Dell’Accio.

My name is Ben Greenfield, and on this episode of the Ben Greenfield Life podcast.

So we're always trying to look at what's perfect environment and how we get people sleeping better and stronger and coming out of it fresh and thriving. And they came to work at Essentia for a few months in the off season and we came up with all these algorithms, 256 formulas based on the questionnaires. And we've been testing it ever since. And it's worked to a charm unexpected. We can tell that the players notice the difference, feel the difference, appreciate it. And that's kind of what drives me, is kind of interaction with customers.

Faith, family, fitness, health, performance, nutrition, longevity, ancestral living, biohacking, and a whole lot more. Welcome to the show. Well, folks, my guest on Today show has actually been on the podcast a long time ago. He's actually spent the past 16 years studying sleep, sleep health and particularly like mattresses and sleeping environment. He has a super interesting story which I talked a lot about him with on the last episode that we did. But he's gonna fill us in now because he's been up to a lot lately. He actually had emailed me a few months ago about some work he's been doing on getting data on sleep environments and specifically what are called sleep stimulants, but not sleep stimulants that you might think about like, say, like, I don't know, caffeine or having a 5 hour energy at 10pm, but stimulants like toxins and off gassing and allergens and pain through lack of proper support in your sleeping surface and numbness through improper pressure redistribution and poor thermoregulation, you know, from the fabrics that you're on during the sleep cycle. And so I thought it'd be really interesting to get into this whole concept of kind of like sleep hygiene 201 as opposed to 101. You know, you got maybe your room kind of cold and your room's dark and quiet. But now what are some other things that you could take into consideration, especially in terms of like your sleeping surface and what your body and your head are laid upon. So my guest on today's show is Jack, and he's the founder and CEO of this company called Essentia. Now they make this natural memory foam mattress which I actually have at my house, and they do a lot of really, really interesting things with the way that they create these sleep surfaces. So, Jack, welcome back to the show.

Man, it's been a few years, Ben, good to reconnect. It has been A few years and so much has changed. I mean, when we first met, we were just getting onto the pro athlete scene. We were really focused on people who are ill and helping people in recovery for their challenges. And we were really at the infancy of how we were working with professional athletes and kind of just scratching the surface of what we were discovering. So, yeah, I think we've come a long way. It's been a while. Good to reconnect with you again.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, actually, you and I didn't connect over mattresses. We connected over triathlons back when both of us were drinking the endurance athlete Kool Aid and doing a lot of racing. But you actually have. For people who may not have a chance to go listen to the other podcast that we did, which I will link to the show. Notes for this show are going to be at BenGreenfieldFitness.com SleepWivesSentia that's E S S E N T I A BenGreenfieldFitness.com sleepwith essentia like essentia spells the T. Can you get into your story a little bit, Jack, about how you kind of got interested in this whole mattress thing in the first place? Because I know you have a little bit of. Kind of a little bit of a wounded healer twist on this thing.

Yeah, I guess that's a lot of stories or companies or products are developed out of a certain need. For me, this dates back 20 years ago, had people in my family who were going through cancer treatments. And that was the big shift for me in awareness of wellness. You know, up until then, basically, I only saw the rosy path and never, never confronted it. And through their. Through their treatments and then both had different directions in what they wanted to take as far as one conventional and one alternative path. But both of them were undergoing their own challenges and the path that they chose, one thing that was interesting was the sleep. Sleep environment. And they both had really serious needs for a healthier home. And that's when, as a family, we were doing a lot of research, a lot of discovery of what was good, what was not good, but also we were seeing they would have reactions to certain environments and they became hypersensitive to everything, whether the chemicals, whether it be dust, whether it be everything in the sleep environment, they became hypersensitive. So I became very interested in that segment of a healthier home. And initially, my goal was to create a better material because what was popular then and still popular now are memory foams. But anyone with severe illnesses can really be hypersensitive. To the chemicals. So I initially started this by trying to develop a latex foam that had a slow response feature to it that would have a behavior like memory foam, but yet still have the organic qualities of latex. And we were successful that 16 years ago when we launched Essentia. But through the years, we've realized and worked on so many more things that are also quite vital in avoiding stimulants for sleep. But that was our beginnings and we did a great thing there back then and continue to evolve and continue, I think, to be the leaders in the space.

Yeah, yeah. It is interesting because there's actually a name for that. It's called idiopathic environmental intolerance. I don't know if you knew that, but it literally kind of like electro hypersensitivity. Some people get brain fog at like 2pm in the afternoon after they've been around their wifi router at the office all day. And that's a thing. But so is this stuff called idiopathic environmental intolerance, which means that people literally get these sets of symptoms caused by contact with different substances. And it's also known as multiple chemical sensitivity. And I do know a lot of people who have everything right in the bedroom, like I was talking about earlier, like their room is cold and maybe they even have one of those chili pads on and their room is dark and they're taking their lavender and all their sleep supplements. Everything still getting poor sleep. And I think a lot of these people actually are staying awake due to this multiple chemical sensitivity, which is why I wanted to talk with you about this again, because it's so interesting and so impactful. And, you know, there are some aspects of the sleep environment that I want to get into. But first of all, when it comes to the potential for allergens on a mattress, can you explain what the issue is? And then what you guys went about doing to take care of that, like what kind of fabrics, what kind of materials you wound up choosing?

So, so when it comes to allergens, there's. There's the three one, which, you know, we don't refer to it as an allergens, is the chemical sensitivities, but aside from that, it's ultimately derives from protein. So you'll have specifically most mattresses that are quilted. They. They'll have. They'll kind of become nesting areas for dust mites and basically dust mite feces, dust mite corpse. Those proteins trigger an overreaction from the body. In organic mattresses, it could be from latex, the Latex and proteins trigger overreaction from the body. So what we do in ours is we have zero quilting pads on the surface. So you're always directly, you know, we have our organic cotton finishing cover, and you go directly onto our beyond latex memory foam. And the foam itself basically is very dense and high elasticity, so dust mites can't burrow through them. And through our processing, we eliminate all of the proteins are in them. We've actually been tested by Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. They've analyzed our latex, they've analyzed our testing results in our covers, and they basically identified that we're the ideal sleep surface for people suffering from allergy. What's really cool, and what I was talking to you about not long ago, is that, you know, we hear about the people who are hypersensitive who acknowledge the reactions from their body. But some of the testing I was telling you about, and that's been what's really been cool, working with pro athletes compared to those who are suffering from a challenge. Those who are suffering, it's kind of. It's always hard to put your pinpoint what stimulant is really affecting them. But to be really curious about the pro athletes, these guys are fit. The bulk of them are not having trouble sleeping. But we've been able to do is with trackers, is identify that these stimulants actually allergens, toxins, they're affecting how deep you sleep. And we were able to do a double blind Test with about 64 players, I believe it was for a couple of months. And really able to see that there is an impact. So we have. Those are people who are hypersensitive to their sleep environment, but even those who are not, are not getting the best sleep that they can.

Okay. And the main reason for the allergy part, from what I'm getting, based on what you're saying right now, is that the mattress material that you're using is basically not allowing these dust mites to build up, which is kind of nasty to think about that mattresses normally would have dust mites. And then it's the actual protein in the latex that triggers the allergy. And so if you don't use, what do they call it in the mattress indices? Is it batting like the material? It's like a wool or a fiber batting. It's like a nesting ground for dust mites. You guys are not using that. But what do you use instead? What's the materials that are actually used in the mattress?

So in our mattress, we Just have really, really sensitive formulations that we don't need any batting at all. So that's what's really interesting is typically a latex formula is a little rubbery, a little stiff, it has a lot of bounce, and it doesn't have the comfort, the pressure redistributing qualities. But we've developed 256 different variations of our foam formula so that we don't actually eliminate the need for any batting at all. You like, other than that thin layer of cotton, organic cotton that's on it. You are sleeping directly onto our foam material. And every mattress has several layers with several different formulas of our latex to give us the feel, the comfort, the contouring, the support, so we don't have any of the batting.

Okay, got it. And you know, we've already thrown around the term memory foam a few times, and correct me if I'm wrong, but memory foam is basically like a, it's like a viscoelastic substance, right? So viscosity or viscous fluids have like a certain level of thickness and density and then elasticity is the idea behind how much it can stress or compress. And what a memory foam does, I think based on the name, is almost like, is it that kind of like molds to the contours of your body and remembers the way that your body is shaped, or what exactly is it that makes memory foam? Memory foam?

Now, memory foam is a commercial term, but you hit it right on. The proper terminology for what's commercially sold out there is viscoelastic polyurethane foams. However, the concept of memory foam is a slow response foam, which means it reacts slower than just a conventional foam. And that creates a body cast. That body cast is better for blood pressure redistribution and blood circulation, and it eliminates that negative space so that you're getting, you're fully supported. The issue with the polyurethane memory foams is that they're basically all chemicals. Traditionally, these are have been high density products as of recently with a lot of bed in the box brands that are lower price, they're eliminating density, so they're eliminating support and actual elasticity of the product. But ideally it should be a high density, highly supportive, pressure redistributing product. What we have done is we have given those properties to latex foam. So that takes away the toxicity and, and off gassing that comes with it. We're actually the highest density on the market. So we're extremely high density, but very high elasticity, which is quite unique for a latex foam. So and the beauty of it is that it's pressure redistributing, it creates this supportive cast of the body, but it's not temperature sensitive as a memory foam. So the chemical properties of that memory foam, it kind of absorbs your body heat to create this cast, which is good for the support feature. Not good if you're changing position. Also not good if you sleep hot. And we'll get into thermal regulation. But sleeping hot is not a good thing for anyone. And it's not a static temperature situation, but something that is active throughout the sleep cycle.

Okay, got it. And so for the way that you would make this memory foam, if you're using latex, where exactly are you getting the latex from to be able to call this natural? I assume it's, I don't know, grass from the Himalayas sprinkled with unicorn tears or how exactly does the latex piece fit in?

It's basically certified organic Hevea milk. So the hevea Brazilian tree, they, there's plantations of these in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India. Originally was from Brazil, but basically very, very little of any production comes from Brazil these days. So we buy our certified organic Hevea milk from India and Sri Lanka and we, we froth it and formulate it and make all of our, our formulas at our plant in Montreal, Canada.

Okay, got it. And then, you know, I think it was the last episode we were talking a little bit about this idea of the actual oils or petroleum products that are commonly used in mattresses. And from what I understand, the oils are actually necessary as part of the memory foam creation process. Can you explain that?

Well, we don't use any of the petrochemical products that are used in memory foam. So conventional memory foam is polyurethane foam, which is a complete chemical product. We use the Hevea milk and we use essential oils. And our essential oils are really in the, that's creating the different feels, the different elasticities for all the different variations that we make. Because like I mentioned, every single layer of the mattress is based according to posture, is based according to if we want somebody to have something a little bit more adaptive, something that reacts a little quicker to movement. So we work with plant extracts, essential oils and Hevea milk and really have our own patented version and proprietary formulas that make ours unique and not having to go towards the chemical variations which are basically the only known memory foam, aside from essentia, is fully chemically derived foam.

Alright, got it. So you, you have the hypoallergenic materials because it's like this natural latex. You also mentioned that it's better at not storing heat that the body puts off while you're asleep. And that's like the one thing that kind of annoys me. That's why I actually use a chilipad a lot of times when I'm at home because I sleep so hot, so does my wife. I still need the added chili pad on top of that. And I just sweat buckets when I'm like at a hotel room or something that doesn't have my usual at home mattress cooling pad circulating setup. But what's the deal with the mattress storing body heat and how do you keep it from doing that?

So that's the interesting thing is everyone just generally thinks you have to sleep cold. And I enjoy sleeping cold as well. However, what we've been tracking through our data is that through the, you know, the assumed eight hours of sleep now, whether it be six, eight hours, whatever, whatever everyone is. But throughout that process we've noted that what's really important is that if your body is releasing its heat and constantly in a decline of temperature through that eight hour time lapse, your central nervous system is slowing down and it keeps you into your deep sleep cycles longer. And that's our goal. Our goal is eliminate stimulants. And heat is one of the stimulants. And we want to get people to stay in deep sleep and REM sleep longer because that's how, that's what, that's the creation of healing, recovery, both mental and physical. And so the way that our mattress does that is it allows for that permeation of body to go through it doesn't trap it at the surface. So no matter what's being done, whether you have a lower room temperature or you're using a chili pad, which I suggest using the blanket version and not the mattress surface version because the, what we're trying to achieve is a cool, coolness in your environment, but also allowing that your body heat exits and is flown outwards. Because what we want to achieve is that that temperature is constantly on the decline and that'll extend sleep, that'll extend deep sleep cycles. Because it's sort of the body in its environment. You have to think back where we were before all this technology. Imagine if you had to imagine yourself sleeping on the sand and you know, at night the environment is cold. And sand is one of those materials that does not trap heat, it escapes. So allowing that body heat to escape lets you sleep deeper and lets you sleep longer. When the environment is warming up, that is stimulating the central nervous system and gets your internal clock towards its awakened stage. So it keeps you in light sleep or an awakened stage. So ideally is not trapping heat, allowing coolness for comfort, but also allowing that body heat to constantly be eliminated and discarded throughout the sleep cycle.

Okay, and you said for the temperature control, for ideal temperature control, you actually don't like the chilipad underneath the body, like between the body and the mattress. You said you would prefer for people to use the blanket, which just so folks know, Chilipad also makes a blanket that unlike the sleep surface that you sleep on, the blanket actually it's kind of cool. It's like a gravity blanket and circulates cold water through the blanket itself. And what you're saying, Jack, is ideally you're sleeping on top of the mattress with the cool water blanket on top of you?

Exactly. Yeah. I think that's the optimal way of using the technology.

Why wouldn't you want. Well, I guess I don't know if it's possible do the chilipad on the bottom and then the chilipad blanket on the top. But are you saying that in an ideal scenario, if you have something like an essentia mattress that's not trapping the heat anyways, then you can kind of have the best of both worlds by having the cooling surface on top of your body and then the non heat trapping surface underneath your body.

Exactly. And you're not having anything obstructing any of the pressure redistributing properties, the precise elasticity. That's for posture support, eliminating negative space. So you really, you're not interfering with what the mattress is supposed to do. And having the cool, coolness on top that. So the coolness on top doesn't work with every mattress because again, if you're going to be on a polyester mattress or a chemical mattress, you're going to be cooling from the top, you'll be sweating from the bottom. See that you know that that's where the regular chili paddle is helpful. But when we're talking what we've engineered these mattresses to do, it's best to use the mattress as design and have the chili blanket over it.

Okay. Okay, gotcha. Now, early on, as I was introducing you, I talked about this idea that you had emailed me about that kind of made me want to interview you again in the first place. This idea of sleep environment and stimulants and at first the g. Again, when you emailed me, I thought you were talking about coffee and stuff like that, but you're actually talking about some of these stimulants that wake us up during the night. We talked a little bit about toxins and off gassing of chemicals, which is obviously an issue in terms of the material used to make the mattress along with the allergens that could potentially be in something like a latex based protein if you're not careful with the choice of that. But what are some other reasons that people would have stimulants using your definition of a stimulant, like an environmental stimulant during the night of sleep? And you know, one other that we already talked about was thermoregulation. But what are some others that you're aware of in terms of sleep stimulants?

We've identified seven and how we are defining stimulants is whatever external entity or that basically takes you from REM sleep, deep sleep and keeps you in the lighter sleep. So again, our goal is to keep people as long as possible in REM and deep sleep. One. Helps you log in your memories, it helps with happiness, anxiety. There's so much that happens at night in your REM sleep and then in your deep sleep cycles where you're building muscle and you are physically healing. So we want to keep people as long as possible in those sleep cycles and achieve great healing. So the seven that we've identified, we've named a few is your clean air, avoiding any VOCs and toxins. Thermoregulation is an important stimulant that we have to actively be dropping the body temperature through the night's sleep heat would be considered the stimulant allergens are stimulant allergens basically cause an overreaction of the body. So it's stimulating you out of those deep sleep cycles. And everyone, you know, 25% of the population realize that this is happening because they have an overreaction that they're able to identify whether it be, you know, respiratory issues or skin irritation, but you know, everyone else is fighting it. So that's a stimulant as well. But then there's obviously the obvious ones from the mattress pain management. So pain is a stimulant. And through proper posture support, through dense, adaptive, very high elasticity foam, we eliminate having any of the pain. Then there's adapting to movements. So for example, when a mattress does not quickly adapt to any movements and on the extreme, some people are hyperactive in bed and that they're basically not in their deep sleep patterns long enough. But even those who are sleeping well and are generally not moving too much There are still movements that happen to the body in REM sleep when your brain is very active, can cause movements dreaming. And dreaming can leave a few body movements through the night. And the longer your mattress readapts to those movements. So, for example, a regular memory foam is body heat activated. So two things need to happen. If you change position, not only does the new area of the new surface of the bed need to remold your body, which doesn't take too long, it takes maybe 30 seconds to do so. But the area where you were is still hot and not allowing a proper border to encapsulate your body. That takes about six minutes to cool down. So basically you're looking at six, six and a half minutes where your body is not being, is stimulated by not being fully supported. So what we do is our formulas, because they're not body heat activated as a chemical version, they basically take about six to eight seconds to do so. And again, that's not stimulating the body's awareness and a lack of support.

Okay, so explain that part one more time. They're taking six to eight seconds to do what exactly?

To readapt to a new position. If you happen to roll over the way our formulas are designed, they immediately readapt to your new position. So the body heat imprint that has been left behind on a typical memory foam is not left behind on an essentia foam. So because it's not body heat activated, your old position has firmed up immediately. Your new position has re engaged and readapted to your new position instantly. So that, and again, that allows you to. Because when you, when this change of position happens, it typically gets you back into a light sleep pattern. And the sooner we fully adapted to you. We know, we see, we see through tracking that we get you back sooner into these deep sleep cycles. So that's again adapting to movements. And the lack of support in those movements is one of those, one of those triggers, one of those stimulants. Another one is blood flow. When basically pressure redistribution. If you're not getting, if you're getting a slower flow of oxygen obstruction causing numbness, again, that becomes a stimulant and again takes you out of those sleep cycles, forcing you into a position change. You know, the body is sending messages and the more the body is sending messages that it needs a change. Well, it's taking you out of those sleep cycles. One of the latest ones that we've done in the last two years now that we've been doing a lot of exploring on has been EMFs and EMFs is one of those things where people have been talking about, but you know, before we were able to do anything at essentia we take an evidence based approach to everything. So everything involves sleep testing and really seeing how the body, the brain is reacting to any of these environments. So we'll always do a double blind test and see if there's any differentiators. What we've seen with EMF is a different form of testing which was dark microscopy. We were able to see that the behavior of the blood cells are Critically disrupted by EMFs. We were able to see that during active phone calls, streaming downloads, the blood selectivity was creating the cells to cluster. And the idea is that if they're all clustered together, it's preventing proper blood flow from flowing throughout the body. So what we've been exploring with and achieved about I guess two years ago is rather than completely sheltering yourself and shutting down technologies. Because one of the things I've noticed with our pro athletes is that I'm able to tell them a lot of great things on sleep hygiene and sleep environment. But the one thing no one's willing to do is shut off their phones, phones and streaming. So it's always been back of my mind is how do we adapt to technology instead of asking technology to adapt to us, which, you know, the two sides are never in agreement. But basically with Dr. Valer, I work with a doctor out of Switzerland and the theory that he had is that we had to have organic products that overpowered the behavior, not to block any signals from coming in, but to overpower those signals. So we did a lot of work and a lot of research and we did adapt our formula. So we do have an emf, we call it EMF barrier formula. But all it really does is it overpowers the behavior so it maintains an organic non chaotic blood cell behavior. So even during we've done tests, during phone calls, active streaming downloads, your blood behavior has not changed because of the formulas frequencies of our phone. So that's been pretty cool. That's been our. We normally used to say, we have, we address seven stimulants and this six. We used to say six and now we have the seventh with EMFs. So we're always trying to look at what's the perfect environment and how we get people sleeping better and stronger and coming out of it refreshed and thriving.

Tell me more about this EMF thing. In terms of how you're actually somehow, you didn't say you're blocking the signals, but you're creating a surface or you're adding something to the mattress that allows the body to better handle emf. Can you explain a little bit more?

Yeah. So what we've done is we've, we've, we've put in, we've been putting minerals in our formula. So what happening is that every, every organic product is, can absorb and release signals in their own way. And so minerals are basically can, can give off stronger signals than some weaker.

I'm wearing a necklace right now with a bunch of minerals in it for that very reason. My dad actually at his water filtration company, one of the things he sends out with the water filters is this special bracelet that you strap on actually my sons wear. That's also minerals that seem for some reason I can't even explain why. But yeah, you're right. If you look at red blood cell clumping or the dark blood filled analysis with these type of mineral based clothing or jewelry or I've never tried a sleep surface, but I, I get the idea behind it. You see less of the clumping. There's something going on with the minerals that allows the body to better be able to handle emf. And I, I can't explain it scientifically, but it's really interesting.

It is, it's super cool. And we really, we've, we've analyzed the blood work and we know that it works. The results are incredible. And that's where, that's why we, we followed through and implemented. So what we do is the mineral is put throughout our formula within the latex. And because the sleep surface is such a large surface and so dense, it actually impacts the complete room. So your complete bedroom with about a 10 by 10 space is, is kind of protected by this overpowering frequency that's being powered by these minerals as opposed to the. Because the signals get through. Signals always get through, but they're just chaotic. And that's how technology is. They're chaotic signals that affect blood flow, but these minerals normalize it.

So based on that, just actually a quick question about the EMF thing. What about all these new like smart mattresses? You know, because like eight sleep. Right, that's, that's the one that comes to mind right away. I'm sure they're fantastic people. I've heard great things about the mattress. But the one thing that has kind of kept me from looking into it more is how much EMF could be generated by this. Same reason I don't like smart vacuums and smart refrigerators. I just don't like a lot of Bluetooth. And WiFi and EMF. And when I do get devices, I disable the WI fi and the Bluetooth wherever I can. This whole eight sleep system. I'm not asking you to throw anybody under the bus, but what do you think about this idea behind EMFS and smart mattresses?

First of all, it's been around the issues with EMFs. It's not the world it used to be. In the past EMFs were, the solution was grounding pads and grounding your bed. However, EMFs today are the modern version of them. 3G, 4G, 5G. All the data signals, it's not from what you plug into the wall, it's what's being transmitted everywhere. And you can't even, you don't have a say in it because this transmission is happening from outside your home as well. So the products like eight Sleep I think, you know, again I don't really want to talk negatively about any specific product. I mean when we look at Chili Sleep where they need their cooling blankets, eight Sleep initially was just about data collection. I think the companies value is in data capturing and data collection and I believe that that's how they've done their, their capital raises has been about, you know, that data is important today. Data is customer base. Initially was just about tracking your sleep and they've kind of taken a different direction and they've gone more towards cooling your sleep. But ultimately sleep and a mattress is so much more than just the tracking and, and just the cooling aspect of it. And that's where we, we look holistically at everything that impacts sleep.

Yeah.

And basically you can't just do that out of a single generic product that will, it's again, don't like to talk necessarily about. I've actually heard good things about the people there as well.

Yeah.

Want to negatively, I'm sure it's, it's a, it's a decent product. But again I don't think it addresses sleep to the level that we address sleep.

Yeah, I think I tweeted at them a couple of years ago. I don't know if they changed it. This is like back in 2009 I sent out a tweet because somebody was asking about these eight sleep mattresses and I said I was curious how much EMF it turns out. And they replied to my tweet and said they passed the FCC safety requirements but they said the only emissions that come from it are from the WI FI radio from the hub next to the bed. And my reply was something like oh well, you lost me at wi Fi, I don't want to sleep with a wifi radio next to the hub beside my bed. And so, you know, you know I'm saying, but maybe, maybe you can disable it. Like, you know, I don't want to badmouth them. And I also Jack, you know, I know I'll use mattress conference people probably wind up at the same events. And I don't want you to get beaten up at a bar for bad talking 8 sleep on some cat's podcast. But regardless, I'm just, I'm suspect about it. So I'm a little bit careful, you know. Yeah, I wear a ring, but even that I put in airplane mode at night to track my own sleep. Now, I wanted to ask you. I wanted to ask you about kind of a fun question. Okay. People who listen to my show a lot of times like to own nice things. And I want you to walk me through, like, gold standard scenario because I don't remember the names of all your models and stuff, but walk me through. Like, if somebody wanted the best of the best of the best mattress that you could make, walk me through what it is, what's built into it, and how much a mattress like that would actually cost. Just like, you know, imagine you're talking to somebody who just wants like the ultimate, like, best mattress of all time. What are you. What are you going to put in their bedroom and why?

That'll be interesting. And maybe for fun, I'll give you the other. A little, a little secret at the other end of the spectrum. But so if somebody, let's say, for example, pro athlete reaches out to me and it's without question, it's an investment. So they need to look at what's most important for them. It's not only for pro athletes, but I'm giving you the scenario of ABC hockey player calls me up and says, they all know about us. 25% of the league sleeps on our product. So the process with them is they go through a questionnaire, which is a posture ID questionnaire. It's about 20 questions. We send them a link, they go through that. Once we get the result, there's an algorithm that chooses the combination of our 256 formulas to make the proper adapting posture adapting surface for this individual. What that mattress is composed of is a four layer of our formula. And that four layer starts with and it's all done through our. We've programmed our robotic injectors to. To create all these formulas within an individually molded product. So there's no glues or adhesives. It's just one full latex block with different layers of formula throughout. But what this will be is your surface. For all of them will be high elasticity pressure redistribution for proper blood flow comfort. The second layer underneath that has high elasticity but based on your posture identifiers will be something that will either allow you to sleep deeper into the mattress or on the mattress. What that means is if you have a flatter back, we're going to want to have more lumbar support because your weight distribution will be towards your lumbar and you wouldn't want you he breaking in the mattress. Whereas if you have a very pronounced or regular lower back posture line, you know, we'll want you to get deeper in so that we get eliminate that negative space and make sure that you're always in a balanced approach. The third one below that is the third support layer. And then our base layer of latex, which is typically our firmest and highest quickest response time for latex.

Okay, and a quick, a quick question, Jack, for, for this, this custom sleep system that's like primed to your individual sleep profile or like your posture, your muscle tension or weight distribution or spinal deviation or whatever it is that you're measuring. How are you measuring that? Are you asking the person who buys this mattress to like send you photos or is this some kind of like, like a body scan or how do you actually know this stuff?

I was working with the Montreal Canadiens hockey team several years ago and in working with their medical team, I saw that the way they were diagnosing treatments for neck and spine injuries were through going through personality questions which I thought was like I was trying to understand, what are you guys doing? And basically they had this whole thesis that was made with over 1 million case studies where they cite that the personality and postures were directly linked. So through a series of questions they were able to identify posture, muscular strength and muscular weaknesses and basically from there were able to identify the treatment. So in the off season of that year, I hired the person in charge of this whole treatment and they came to work at Essentia for a few months in the off season. And we came up with all these algorithms and we made these 256 formulas based on the questionnaires we tested on the whole team and we've been testing it ever since and it's worked to a charm. So really without any pictures, without any scanning, we're able to know muscular strength, muscular weaknesses and posture of a person. Based on the personality questions. We're going to send you a link so you can do it yourself. It's pretty fascinating and simple and, and that allows us remote station with players.

Yeah, I think if you send that over I'll link to that questionnaire in the show notes Jack. And again for people listening it's at BenGreenfulFitness.com SleepWitsSentia and then Jack, in terms of the other elements that would go into the ultimate mattress, if somebody wanted the best setup possible, they're going to fill out this whole questionnaire and then what happens next?

So once we identify the posture the top mattress has, it all has our EMF formula. It has our latest and greatest thermoregulation formula which drops surface temperature 7 degrees throughout the 8 hour time lapse. There are some things that all of our mattresses have. They're all certified organic. They've all got the pressure relieving and posture qualities. Just that when we get. We have three types. So our whole body recovery has the best thermal regulation formula, has the best readaptive formula. The difference between our procore which, which goes based on the analysis of the questionnaire to our off the shelf is our off the shelf really divides people into three, three body types which would be a flatter back, a over pronounced lord posture or regular posture. And we have the mattress that matches to that. The procore you know goes 16 times that with all of the different variations to posture types which, which can possibly be. So ultimately it's the formula that changes. But our whole body recovery all have the same benefits. And whereas the procore EMF is included the whole body, the EMF is an option. But ultimately we don't really make a bad bet and we try to make sure that our pro cores are somewhere around the 10k price point. But our whole body recovery are 7,8000 for something that is pre designed and predetermined based on three specific posture types which really covers 99% of people out there.

Right. And those mattresses, even if you don't do the biggest know multi hundred question questionnaire to get it super duper specific, every single one still comes with the, with the EMF blocking minerals, the temperature control, the allergy friendly materials, the sleep surface that responds within those six to eight seconds versus several minutes when you like move around during the sleep and then all of the, all the organic materials like all the mattresses have all of that. But then the, the difference is that the procore is just like customized to your body.

Exactly. Because we don't, we don't, we're not in the business of making any. You know, we're really. You know, when you mentioned about all of us mattress guys know each other, unfortunately, I'm the odd guy out. I'm really. And I'm not at these conferences. My focus is completely on sleep, tracking, sleep, improving sleep. And so the reason we exist is just to make a better product. Our whole body recovery, whether it's the custom Procore or our three models off the shelf, they address all of those seven stimulants and perform best. Like no other mattress performs to this level with addressing those seven stimulants.

Well, I think the only thing that you're missing, Jack, is you got to ship. We should talk about this. You got to ship out all your mattresses with a bottle of Kion Sleep, our new sleep formula. I got to send you some of that stuff. You tried it yet?

I haven't tried it yet. I only heard about it last week. So you. Oh, my gosh, send something to me, and I. I'm gonna get all of, you know, we. We have our. Our essential family and listeners and all that. So we'll spread the word on that. Because I tried your Kion products. They're fantastic. So I'm a fan. I'm a fan of everything. I love you make everything personal. I mean, everything you have, you've tested on yourself. You use it, so. Which is pretty awesome.

Yeah, well, there's some things I've recommended that I haven't tested on myself, like, say, natural tampons, you know, certain things that I just can't because I'm not equipped to. But, yeah, for the most part, I do test just about everything. I suppose that and like, birth control pill alternatives or something like that. So these mattresses, you can't get them at a local mattress store. Why not?

I don't get into the. Is it politics of sleep I'm not into. We just serve direct to consumers. We have our website, myessential.com. i realized about a year into this that not everyone was interested as I was in only improving sleep and only improving outcomes. So I've been pretty stubborn about it, where every time I develop an improvement, I make it available on all of our products. Because, you know, over the years, I don't remember if we've had a great financial year or a bad financial year. I remember the people I've helped. I remember the athletes that are so happy that they've sleeping better and performing better. So that's what drives me. So because of that, we've just kept our relationship direct with Consumers. We've had so many great things over the years. We were featured in a lot of great properties. We're in the stable programs at the MGM Grand Bellagio Aria. So a lot of great hotels from Marriott have essentia asleep in their wellness travel rooms. So we're proud of that relationship. But you know, we really just working directly with people and those are the ones that really care about the ingredients that we put in. They care. You know, I actually surprisingly, I get invited to, to sports events from some of the athletes that buy our products. And you'd imagine that these guys are normally way more interested in Gatorade and high profile products. And sometimes I find myself in an owner's box watching a hockey game and everyone's looking at me, so what are you here for? And I supply the team with mattresses and everyone kind of has a real odd look on their face. It's unexpected. We're not something but. But we can tell that the players notice the difference, feel the difference, appreciate it. And that's kind of what drives me is, is that kind of interaction with customers.

Yeah, yeah. And you guys, I didn't even realize that you got into the pillow and the foundation game. But if people go to your website and I think also maybe we can figure this out because I think we have a discount code somewhere. There was, there's some kind of, there's, there's some kind of special goody people get. I'll have to find what that is and I'll put in the shownotes@bengreenfieldfitness.com sleepwithessentia or maybe you know it, Jack, you can let us know. But then you got pillows and foundations as well.

Yeah, pillows and foundations. Pillows are made out of the exact same material as we make for our mattresses. So we love them. People love them. They're just very adaptive, very comfortable, very high elasticity products. And the foundation is just really a heavy duty foundation because one of the things our mattresses are heavy considering they're 8 to 10 inch profiles, but they pack on a lot of weight. There's a lot that goes into these mattresses. So we want to make sure that the foundation, we get those made from a third party, but to our specs to make sure that they can handle the weight and they don't start squeaking after a few months. So that's really what's important. And that they're breathing, that it also opens up to the breathability that we want this mattress to always have that free ability to breathe and have airflow going in and out, especially since it's allowing your body heat to flow right through it. So we want to have the least amount of interference with that.

Yeah, yeah, okay. And that whole body pillow, by the way, I'm gonna have to try it because you have this sick looking whole body pillow that's U shaped that gives you like the part that hugs your knees and then the part for your head and neck and the part for your low back. And I'm a guy who literally, like, I sleep with a pillow under my head, a pillow on top of my head, a pillow tucked between my knees, and a pillow behind me. So it looks like this whole body pillow you guys make would actually cover all of those variables with one pillow.

I'm going to give credit of that pillow design to Silmain d'. Amau. He was the head of the. Of the Montreal Canadiens team. And when he was working for me that summer, when we basically there was a pregnant woman who came into our showroom and she's trying out the bed and he's like saying, well, you know what you need? And he saw that she was struggling with her back and as she's on the bed, and he put a series of our pillows together and he adapted it for her knees and then set her up for her back. And so then we just built one huge pillow that did all of that based on his recommendations. And so. So it's not just for pregnant women.

But no, it's pretty cool.

Ultimately gives that back support the proper alignment with the knees. It's a big. In some cases, it replaces a partner, though, because it is pretty big. But it works amazing.

Yeah, yeah, it looks really cool. I'm going to have to try one. And then the other thing is this rise foundation. This rise foundation that you guys do. It's like an adjustable foundation, meaning you could do head tilt. You could do it. It's pretty cool looking. It's almost like those treadmills that you run on with the multiple pieces rather than the single long belt. It kind of looks like that. It's like that, but in a mattress foundation. So I assume if you put like a Procore mattress on top of this, you could literally tilt and adjust your actual mattress to be adjustable to, like sit up, lay down, go backwards, be inverted a little bit.

You can adjust any position with. And also even a lounge position where you drop your legs down and raise your knees up. So it has a versatile amount of positions. But really what's unique is that I think our mattress was really the best design for adjustability, and the reason why is we have high elasticity. On a regular adjustable bed, as you try to put in, for example, a position where you're bringing up your legs or rising your back a little, the mattress itself won't adapt to that shape. And depending on your body weight to force it down. Well, that's pressure. And as we mentioned earlier, we have to eliminate pressure and redistribute pressure, not increase pressure. However, our mattresses are so high in elasticity that even if you're not on the bed and you make this, you raise your back or raise the knee position, the mattress will follow the exact contour of this base. So it's not dependent on our body weight. When you get on it, it's full, zero gravity position. So it's pretty awesome. Once you start using adjustable beds, it's actually hard to go back because it's just really versatile for reading, watching TV if you're feeling congested or have a cold, slightly incline the back and helps with breathing, less pressure on the chest. So there's a whole bunch of benefits of using adjustable bases as well.

Very cool.

We have one that really checks off all the boxes of what you need.

Okay, and did you. Do you remember? Because I know the last time we talked, I think we did have some kind of like a discount or a code for my audience to use or something like that. Do you know if we're still running anything like that?

I know that we are. I don't know what it is we.

Can figure out later. I know it's pretty significant. We'll figure out later. And sorry. Sorry to not be able to tell you guys right now. I just don't even remember what it is about it. But I know you guys get discounts and a pretty cool perk with essentia. So I'll find that out and I'll put all that over at BenGreenfieldFitness.com SleepWivesSentia that's BenGreenfieldFitness.com sleep with E S S E N T I A Check out their pillows and foundations, of course, but the mattress is the full meal deal. So check that out too. Jack, thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing all this stuff with us. I think it's a cool, sexy mattress. I'm kind of happy. I have both my sons also sleeping on these things. I got a couple of the little twin mattresses and they sleep well. And so I. I'm just. I'm happy about my audience being able to find out about a good mattress that I think is one of the best ones that's made. So thanks for coming on the show, man.

I actually wanted to drop in a little something. Oh yeah. And again, this was kind of inspired by your friend James that I spoke to a week ago. And I'll kind of. This was unplanned and I kind of want to just drop it in there because in none of our mattresses do we have any coils or springs. That's never been what drives Essentia. It's all about our foam all the way through. Making sure that, you know, that everything is made to perfection. But I do realize it comes at a, at a price. Our price points are, you know, anywhere from three to $10,000, depending on which category. Right. And in talking to James, we, we had developed a group these hybrids and the hybrids are kind of like a best kept secrets because I normally don't talk about them because, you know, again, coils, I don't promote coils, but we actually make the best from what people tell me, we make the best hybrid on the market. But it's branded on the Earth Sleep Green mattress. So we'll allow your. We'll get you a link and a discount for your guys as well. Under Earth Sleep Green mattresses and what they are hybrid versions of our mattresses. So you get our performance mattress on a hybrid version and you know that, that, that is substantially less expensive where mattresses are 2, $3,000 rather than 5, $6,000. It's an interesting thing. Again, it's not something I normally promote because I'm, I'm the latex geek and I'm fully, I mean, to everyone. I always feel that the, the most important thing in life is your sleep because it's the foundation to everything. But I do realize that not everybody has that commitment to sleep as I do. So it's good to have a few levels and options.

Cool. I dig it, man. All right, I'll put all that stuff@bengreenfieldfitness.com sleepwithessentia where people can go and check out all the shownotes shop around. You can even listen to the other podcasts I did with Jack where we also geeked out on sleep for another hour. And so you can pair that up with this one if you'd like. Jack, I'm gonna have to upgrade a few of my sleep habits after chatting with you. So I appreciate you finishing filling me in on the latest and greatest in the mattress industry and for coming on the show.

Thank you. It was awesome speaking to you and reconnecting again and we've got to get you hooked up with a, with a new AMF version. So we'll get you, we'll get you set up and, and make sure everything's well, but look forward to seeing you again soon. Thanks for everything. Appreciate being on and, and we'll talk again soon.

All right, cool. Well, folks, until next time, I'm Ben Greenfield along with D. Jack from my essentia signing out from BenGreenfieldLife.com have an amazing week. You know, I'm honestly shocked every time I see a bodybuilder or so called fitness influencer or anyone really promoting these things called BCAAs. Branched chain amino acids. Aside from the fact that BCIAs contain only three of the nine essential acids that your body needs, BCAAs can cause all sorts of issues like messing with your serotonin levels, depleting B vitamins, deleteriously affecting your blood sugar. They're like fancy, expensive flavored water. They're known as a good money maker in the nutrition industry, but they're not that great. So it's starting to catch on now in the industry that essential amino acids are the way to go instead. There's a reason that essential amino acids, when I go out to dinner with my friends, just out there with one of my friends the other day and he's like, dude, I just like, my body just won't stop responding to these things. He takes them pre workout, post workout, before bed, when he's fasted, when the gut's not feeling right. Right. It just, it's the cleanest, most bioavailable form of protein, period. Like some people, like the serious athletes, they're taking 40 to 60 grams of this stuff a day and dominating 10 to 20 grams a day, even 5 grams a day makes a huge difference. If you haven't even experimented with or tried EAAS yet, you are totally missing out. Like, it's so simple, it's so easy and everybody's body response to them because it's just amino acids. There's not no crazy stuff that you know it might work for, you might not. It's just they work and there's so much research behind them, it's silly to not throw them in pre workout, post workout, before you go to bed if you're fasted. Like I go through so many canisters of these things, it's nuts. And they're just, they're good. They're the Swiss army knife of supplements. I can tell you that right now, 20% off though. You get 20% off of these things. You go to getkion.com getK-I-O-N.com BenGreenfield that'll give you that special discount for your first time purchase. And it's got a lime flavor, got a berry flavor. They they taste amazing. They perform wonderfully. So Kion Aminos get K-I O-N.com BenGreenfield. More than ever these days, people like you and me need a fresh, entertaining, well informed, and often outside the box of approach to discovering the health and happiness and hope that we all crave. So I hope I've been able to do that for you on this episode today. And if you liked it, or if you love what I'm up to, then please leave me a review on your preferred podcast listening channel, wherever that might be, and just find the Ben Greenfield Life episode. Say something nice. Thanks so much.

Means a lot.