How to Choose a Healing Mattress: Not Your Usual Sleep Advice with Jack Dell’Accio of Essentia

Dr. Mindy  

On this episode of The resetter podcast, I am bringing you Jack delacio, who is the founder of Essentia mattresses. Now there’s a really complex conversation around sleep and mattresses that you are about to hear, and before you rush away, I want you to understand that our sleep and our bedroom and the whole process of sleeping is a healing environment we are putting our bodies in. And I wanted to bring jack to you all to talk about, how do we look at our mattresses as a healing tool? So we start off by looking at things like toxicity. I spent years and years in my clinic helping people detox, and we dove into looking at all kinds of toxins that were coming off of mattresses, and so, Jack and I will discuss what toxins you need to know that might be off gassing from your mattress. We also talk about things like EMFs. Very interesting conversation on EMFs, because you can’t see EMFs and so, but a lot of us are having trouble sleeping at night because of these frequencies that are coming into our rooms. And how do we look at our mattress as possibly helping us block these EMFs? Then we also dive into mold. This one was fascinating to me, because I don’t know where am I menopausal women, how many times have you woken up in the morning and your sheets were drenched and all of a sudden you, you know, air them out. But did you know that if you’ve been sweating in bed over and over and over again, there can be mold that’s forming in there? So this is the complex conversation you’re about to hear. I promise you, it’s not scary when we talk, talk talk about toxins, a lot of times it can be incredibly daunting. And it was really important for me to bring jack to you all and help you understand how to navigate if you have the right mattress, if you need a new mattress, if your mattress is blocking you from healing, and if you are going to buy a new mattress, how do you figure out which mattress to use? So it’s a really informative mattress conversation, and I’m really excited, because Jack was the one to bring you all this information. As you will discover, he is such a sweet man. His heart is in the right place. He’s not trying to sell you his mattress, although we do have discount codes if you’re interested in it, just go to my essential.com and use the code resetter. But he and I align on just helping people understand where they are putting themselves in a healing environment, and where they may be putting themselves in an environment that is actually accelerating disease and the mattress, it could be one of those. So I definitely wanted to have that conversation. So hope you enjoy it, and off to Jack and I to discuss mattresses. Enjoy. Welcome to the resetter podcast. This podcast is all about empowering you to believe in yourself again, if you have a passion for learning, if you’re looking to be in control of your health and take your power back, this is the podcast for you.

Okay? Jack, I’m really excited to sit with you and and dive into everything we need to know about mattress. So thank you for being here.

Jack Dell’Accio  

No, thank you. I’m so grateful to be a part of it. So thanks for the invite. 

Dr. Mindy  

I’m gonna go way back, about 10 years ago, I got into doing detox in my clinic. And part of why I got into doing detox in my clinic was because I started to see that certain people were not getting well as quickly as other people. And I couldn’t figure out what like the through line was, until I started to look at, oh, some people have exposure to a significant amount of toxins, and that exposure actually starts to affect how they heal. And so I started going down this rabbit hole of like, where all the toxins coming from. And that got really scary, really quick. And one of the things that emerged out of that initial discovery was that our mattresses were off gassing. Our mattresses were holding on to mold. Our mattresses had toxins in them, and we spend so much time on our mattress, it’s so different. Gina, one of the first things you want to detox or get out get you want to fix and get out of your house. So through a toxic lens, can you talk to us a little bit about what’s the problem with just walking into sleep train? I’m going to call I have nothing against that Mattress Store, but it is local to me, and just buying a mattress because it feels comfortable, what do we need to think about from a toxic standpoint?

Jack Dell’Accio  

Well, the definitely great question, and kind of dates back to my experience 25 years ago. How I got into this was my dad had was diagnosed with cancer, and he was dealing with whole lot of environmental reactions and overreactions, and one of them was in the sleep environment. And as we started to kind of figure out what that was, we actually realized that the the one element in your home that probably emits the most toxins is the mattress and more. So, you know, at that time, I was in Canada, and now I’m in the US, but in the US, there are fr regulations that force manufacturers to put a higher load of toxins to make it a fire barrier. But when I had realized that those, those, those toxins that were emitting out of the mattress, and what that does to slow down his recovery, what that did to have an overreaction from his body getting into highs, respiratory issues. It was easy to see when someone is ill, how the body is reacting and overreacting to that. Well, Said, it’s very difficult for a healthy person, because they all think we’re invincible. We’re not noticing it. We’re not realizing it. As I dug deep into this and developing the essential material specifically for that one person purpose of eliminating toxins, I had realized that it wasn’t just enough to be organic, and that would be if we’re just addressing the issue of toxins. Yes, an organic mattress does the job, but I’m sure as we’ll dig a little deeper in just organic is just one of the elements that you need from a mattress. But absolutely, when we’re talking about toxins, one it makes your again, speaking to about a healthy person who doesn’t have intolerances and overreactions to chemicals, just for the ordinary person going to sleep in a toxic environment, in on a toxic bed, you’re overworking your central nervous system. You’re you’re keeping it active. So it’s not it keeps you out of the slow wave cycles which heal the body, heal the mind. So there’s so much going on that we need during sleep, that toxins prevent us from getting deep into that. And that’s that’s scratching the surface. That’s the obvious stuff, but it impacts our hormones. It impacts so much of everything. And when I was when you invited me to be on the podcast, was actually kind of interesting, because I started to look at some of our female athletes that we work with, some of the retired ones, and what they’re going through when they get into into their home hormone change, right in pre menopausal and all that. So and I’m looking at this, and I realized that everything that I’ve been designing and building for essential, it’s how can I explain it? Men and women are obviously different. And the a lot of the things that I’ve done for the change, for general sleep, the only difference between men and women, truly when it comes to sleep, is that some of these points are so much more important because of the life changes of women, because of, you know, so again, it’s a little bit of what what helps women will ultimately good for men, but so much more relevant to women. And that was one of the things I’ve realized before coming to the show here. Take it for granted when I’m speaking one on one with an athlete, but you know, when we’re talking about a whole category, a whole audience, it’s interesting how that came to mind. Yeah, well, it’s interesting because toxins do affect women a lot more, and part of that is because of the nd. They’re endocrine disruptors. So you know, if you have an off gassing on a mattress of chemicals, those chemicals might actually be like estrogen mimickers that go into a female body while she’s sleeping. That body thinks it’s estrogen, but it can’t use estrogen the same way as it’s real estrogen, so then it throws off her estrogen levels, which is actually really detrimental for a menopausal woman who’s like, holding on to every little bit of estrogen she possibly could have. So do we know just so I can kind of help people and guide people into understanding the toxins and mattresses. Do we have like, a category of like, Hey, these are the, these are the toxins you’re gonna want to stay away from when you’re shopping for a mattress. So.

So the chemical lists are really long. I’ll tell you the consumer product to avoid. So the consumer product to avoid is you’ll avoid polyurethane. Polyurethane being what almost all regular synthetic mattresses on the market are made of. That’s the petrochemical foam in a mattress itself. The on the surface levels, their densities are higher, so their concentration and toxin load is that much stronger, and it’s off gassing that much more. So the polyurethane would be the primary culprit for releasing the toxins. Immediately after that are the FR barriers and the FR chemicals that are added in, typically either to the foam itself or to the cover. So the textiles become a fire barrier, and they have chemical treatments for that as well. Typically you’ll have polyester, the polyester shell with fire barrier liquids in it, and basically Beneath that is the polyurethane that is your primary products to avoid. So you want to transition from going from a polyester to an organic cotton. You want to not put in any of the you want to make sure there’s that beautiful, lofty pillow type look that you get on a mattress that looks really nice. Well, they put that in first for softening, because if you don’t have the the optimal materials underneath, they need to add the cushioning on top. But that cushioning is is fiber batting. That fiber batting becomes a nesting ground for allergens. Those are chemically treated, which adds more toxic load to your mattress. So you know, when there’s a there’s a consequence to everything you’re putting in there. So right now, if you go from top to bottom, you’ve got your fabric laced with Fr chemicals. You got your five fiber, which is now laced with cleaning detergents and chemicals to keep them clean. Then you’ve got your polyurethane underneath. And then from an entry level, you’ve got your spring case underneath, which typically is inert. So it’s whether you have a organic or non organic product. A spring Doesn’t affect any of the toxic load. However, the springs don’t, are not as durable, do not give the same support, but ultimately become kind of like disruptors with EMFs, so which is a whole other topic as well. So ultimately you want to go at a full organic foam product at essential that’s all we’ve ever focused on. Has been working the formulas of latex to make them behave as we need for eliminating motion, transfer, pressure, redistribution, all those things can be handled in proper foam formulation. Again, organic foam formulation and avoiding those main materials is what you need to

Dr. Mindy  

do, is it? Is it? Is it a situation like I know when I go to my farmers market and I ask them always, have you sprayed your chemicals on the food? And are you certified organic? Many of them will say, Well, you know, we are organic, but we just didn’t go through the process to become certified organic. When I walk into a mattress store, is there regulation around what’s organic and what’s not? Or can I just assume, if they say it’s organic, that they mean it? So

Jack Dell’Accio  

No, they’ve got to be certified gals and gots organic, so the brand that you’re buying, so if you’re buying mattress a the certification needs to be in the name of that brand. Reason I’m saying that so you’ve got gals and got certifications is there’s so much fake green washing going on. So so. So what’s many retailers will do? And some brands will do, they’ll piggyback on one of their suppliers certifications. So for example, if they were buying, and we don’t sell to any of those people, so that’s not an issue with us. But technically, if someone was buying one layer of foam from us, and they would then say that it’s certified galls and gots organic, as you can see by essential certifications. But if they’ve added that, if they’ve encased that in a polyester fiber filled, fr treated and below our foam, maybe put in a polyurethane foam for cost, bringing down costs, they can bury that organic product to being something that’s really non significant. In fact, when I, when I started, when I first developed the foam, my first customers, I never thought I’d have a direct to consumer brand. My focus was really just developing the material, and my first natural instinct was to sell this to the big manufacturers, and they initially started buying it. But what they wanted, they wanted quarter inch and half inch slivers of our product. They wanted it for marketing purposes. So they would glue it on to their polyurethane and wrap it up, and they would say that it had galls and got certain. Well actually that was pre that we were pre galls and gots. That was at the time that we were making this. Organic foam, but we were not certified at the time. Before I went to the direct to consumer, I’ve noticed in my own in my own experience, there was a point where I would say I don’t need to be certified. I know it goes in it, and we know we’re all organic, but it was not as simple as that, because I can be getting cheated by my supply chain. So So I realized that when I became certified, my suppliers needed to be certified as well, so that forced them to make sure that they weren’t using pesticides, and they had to follow the proper protocols and the custody of of the of the of the product from tapping the trees all the way to when it’s out our doors has been fully audit, verified, audited and vetted all the way through. So that kept my suppliers audits, because I saw inconsistencies before that we were certified and that. So that made a difference that, you know. So again, that gave me, as a manufacturer, who I really should have full control of everything I’m putting in it. But if I don’t see all the farms internationally that have really harvested this fluid for us, unless we have the auditors on site and making sure that those fields are pesticide free, that the managing of the products are are to standards. There’s other things, like there’s no child labor and so many other things that come with a certification. But ultimately, the primary thing is making sure that it’s a tox in free certified organic product. If I had my doubts as a manufacturer, consumer should have their doubts if they’re not buying it, if the brand and the certification don’t match, there’s an issue there.

Dr. Mindy  

Okay, okay, cool. Just, I just want to make sure people can go in and navigate a sales person who might try to steer you and say, these are all organic. What I’m hearing and what you said is maybe the next question, if, if you don’t see certified organic on it, is to ask, what chemicals are in the fabrics of the mattress? Are the mattress companies? Do they have to divulge that? Do they have to tell you

Jack Dell’Accio  

they do not? No, there’s no. So that’s whether your only true test is understanding the certifications that are on there, and then the two that lead in this space is galls for the just global organic latex certification. And got this is global organic textile certification. So most, most mattresses will only have gots. And the reason they’ll only have gots is because they’ll they’ll put an organic fabric on the top, but everything within the core of the mattress is not organic. So they get the right to say that it’s a got certified organic cover. However, that doesn’t tell you that the fiber batting I’ve seen so many manufacturers that have a got certified organic shell, and then they it’s quilted in polyester, and then they’ve got polyurethane on the inside and springs and all that. So so you really need to take the time to prioritize if you’re going to prioritize sleep, prioritize understanding the components that are in the mattress that you’re considering, from the shell to the fiber filling to the core itself.

Dr. Mindy  

Okay, okay, so then, before we move off the toxic load, I really again, I’ve sat with so many patients and detox so many patients, I really understand how overwhelming this could be. Like, you come to a conversation like this and you’re like, what, my mattress has toxins in it, and I’ve got an autoimmune condition and my menopausal symptoms are off the chart. Like, it’s almost like you want to reject it because it’s too overwhelming. So two questions before we move off the toxic piece of mattresses is, one, is there a life to like would? Does it off gas, maybe for six months and then it’s fine? Or do these toxins? Is it like a continual toxin that just dribbles into your system night after night. Is there, like, like, if I have a mattress that is 10 years old, five years old, is it going? Are those toxins out of it? That would be my first question. So

Jack Dell’Accio  

obviously, at the initial stage, it’s had their highest intensity. And you know, the the actual reactions, in many cases are still active and off gassing the most, it is constantly declining. The exposure and intensity of the off gassing is a constant decline. But what’s also happening at the same time, specifically on certain material, polyurethane, for example, as. Those toxins are escaping, the product itself is losing some of its flexibility. It’s becoming dry, brittle, and it’s breaking down. So as you’re losing the toxic load, you’re losing the benefits, the physical benefits that you bought that product to begin with. Oh, yeah,

Dr. Mindy  

there you go. Yeah. Well, there’s that. It’s that’s a problem too. Yeah,

Jack Dell’Accio  

so that’s kind of that exchange.

Dr. Mindy  

And then the, you know, I guess my other question would be, and I, and I don’t know if you know, this might actually be more of an answer for me, but I’m thinking again, like it’s really hard to look at two mattresses and say, well, one is $3,000 and the other one is $5,000 and the reason I would spend a $2,000 difference is because of this off gassing. Do we have any literature out there about like, autoimmune conditions and mattresses or people becoming sick from their mattresses, like has anybody actually gone in and studied the poor health that can be created with mattresses? So you’re

Jack Dell’Accio  

not going to find studies on a mattress itself, but there’s plenty of of studies talking about the exposure to the specific chemicals, to the specific components that are used in mattresses. So when you talk about polyurethane and understanding the breakdown of polyurethane, and you’ll have the connection from that, you’ll have the, you know, the chemicals used for fire barrier use, and the connection of chemicals with those. And the unfortunate part is that all of these are within legal limits. So what does that mean? Is that, you know, the foam manufacturers, the five, the ones who are converting the fiber they’re all using, they’re putting the chemical exposures, obviously, within legal limits. But the legal limits are still not healthy. They just, they just won’t kill they’ll kill you slowly, not quickly, yeah. So that’s like the

Dr. Mindy  

RDA. That’s like the RDA, right? The art, you know, this is, what, how many, how much vitamin A and vitamin D you should get into your into your system, and when we look at those regulations, that are really minimal. So

Jack Dell’Accio  

in talking about a mattress, so many mattress brands, so many models are all very different. So you’re not going to have a study that’s really talking about specific mattresses alone, like when we do studies, we’ll we’ll do studies which we’re man, we’re looking at everything, as far as sleep, REM sleep, deep sleep, heart, heart rate, very variability. We’ll look at all those things when it comes to our mattresses, and we compare them to polyurethane mattresses, memory foam mattresses, other organic mattress so we’ll make comparative testings over 10 week double blind studies. But we’re not specifically looking for the reaction to chemicals. We’re looking the impacts of sleep when exposed to the totality of what those products have to offer. Really good

Dr. Mindy  

point, because if you look at the hypothalamus, pituitary, pineal gland, it’s not that controls your circadian rhythm, and that actually is one of those things where it doesn’t have a blood brain barrier. So if you’re if you’re lying on a mattress and it’s off gassing. You’re breathing that in, it’s going into this part of the brain that doesn’t have a protective shield around it. Then, yes, it’s going to throw off REM sleep and deep sleep and and heart rate variability. And so it sounds like you guys have measured that, yeah,

Jack Dell’Accio  

one of the, one of the things that I would say when you’re looking at different price points in conventional mattresses, a conventional organic mattress is the difference between an organic mattress that might be, you know, $1,000 to compared to something that’s 3000 compared to something that’s 6000 it’s kind of all over the map. In general, cases, these are very easy to understand. Why those differences are so, for example, if you’re most most organic mattresses are made with organic latex. And so $1,000 mattress will have a very small amount of organic latex, the rest will be coils. You know, you get into the next level, it’ll be more latex, less coils. And that in the ratio. And then we get to the most expensive, it’s all latex, no coils. So that’s kind of how the pricing goes with ours. It’s a little bit different because we never have coils. However, we really change our formulas substantially, and we really get into the behavior of those form formulas to maintain them always organic, but also having a desired outcome for performance. And I think you’re actually the perfect person. You’ve experienced that where you know, at one point, I think you didn’t want to reach out to me, just busy schedules and you went organic, but not our organic. Nick right? And you saw that difference. So you can speak to it in your own experience, but, but that’s really there. There. There are differences, and that’s what we I obsess with, believe it or not, because we’re, we have a full range of products that, you know, they’ll typically would have gone from 2500 up to 10, $12,000 my energy the last 20 years have had of leading essential has actually been to maintain as low cost as possible. And it’s hard to believe, because they are quite pricey. But believe it or not, I, you know, if I follow the way the industry goes, I could just be making a $50,000 mattress easily. And it’s our 20th anniversary, and instead of launching something that was super high price again, I said, How do I take what I’ve learned, what I’ve developed, and make it more accessible to everyone? Because what makes me happy is more people being healthy. And for our 20th anniversary, we actually did something at the $1,600 level, but not to get into merchandising and all that kind of stuff. But the thing is, my challenge to myself for the last 20 years is, how do we make this accessible to everyone? Now, obviously we’re dealing with a lot of pro athletes that use our products, and they’ve always seen us as a value, but I understand for the order for everyday consumer, when they’re walking, when they’re going and look at mattresses, it’s kind of shocking where the prices are, and it’s overwhelming and understanding why, and it gets frustrating, and people just walk away and just buy anything, but putting putting thought into what’s in it, and the toxic exposures that come out of all the different possible components in there and not focused on that embroidery that says Wellness Spa or something that kind of sounds organic, but what’s inside really matters,

Dr. Mindy  

right? Yeah, and that’s why, again, why I wanted to bring you on is so we can, like, take all the different parts of mattresses and break them apart. Here I will, I will tell you that what I love about your mattress. So we actually have one mattress in our house that’s all organic, and it’s great, but it doesn’t have any of the other bells and whistles that your mattresses have, and we’ll talk about that in a moment. So I kept having to put, like the cooling pads on top and the grounding sheets. Like, as I kept learning about all these things that were, like, affecting my health, I kept having to layer all these things on top of this organic mattress. And then I, like, hit this, this under, like, when I learned about you had put everything in one mattress, I was like, Oh, my God. Like, how much easier is that? So that’s, that’s one thing I want to point out. The other thing that, and I sent a message to you on this, what I found so interesting is it sort of had the softness of, like, maybe like a foam mattress, but it was hard underneath. So when I would get up, I felt like I was, like, significantly, like, I enjoyed getting into bed, but I didn’t get out with kind of aches and pains like I like, it had the benefit of a hard mattress, but it had a soft feeling on top. Is that, did you guys do that on purpose?

Jack Dell’Accio  

First of all, I loved, loved, loved the message you sent me. One, it was so authentic. Then two is, as you’re speaking to me on the message, you’re thinking about what you’re saying. So it just came out so authentic that way, that you’re just speaking and thinking about what you’re trying to say at the same time. So it was an awesome message. And because you’re you’re in that message, you’re telling me how, you know, I prefer a firm bed. It didn’t feel firm to the touch, and then I got on it, and all of a sudden it’s supporting me like a firm bed, but it doesn’t feel firm. Yes, that’s all by design. That’s all intentional. Number one, a hard bed is actually not good for so many things. Not good for your posture, unless you’re have a flat board posture, but if you have curves in your back, like most of us do, a hard bed is not good for you. It doesn’t promote proper blood circulation. It doesn’t give the proper cradling support for your lower back and shoulders. If you’re a side sleeper, it brings you even further away from being good for you. So a hard bed is not right? The problem is that no one’s put the time as we have to develop something that has the elasticity to adapt to your curves, but has the high density to continually support it, and that’s exactly what you have. You don’t you have a bed that feels soft to the hand touch, but when you’re horizontally on it, it’s fully supportive, because the density is there. We actually are. Our beds are more dense than the standard mattress, about about triple the density of a regular mattress. So you’re getting that support, you’re getting that feel, but without the hardness, no without the boardiness that you get from what’s. A firm support conventionally in the mattress industry.

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah, it’s really unique, and really, I’ve never been on a mattress like that before. So Okay, talk to me about EMFs and grounding, because that was another thing that kind of, as I was researching toxic toxins, is that we’re not just dealing with chemicals, but we’re dealing with frequencies, and I think EMF some people are starting to understand that grounding sheets have become really popular. So what is what is it that we might need to know about the the part of like EMFs and grounding, because you’ve built in the grounding into the mattress. So this,

Jack Dell’Accio  

I guess, important to preface this, is that all of my research has been about the science of sleep and moving that needle on REM sleep and deep sleep, because that’s the game changer. And it’s important to know that while yes, one specific thing, like just toxins or just thermal regulation or just EMFs, that alone is not doesn’t cut it, and that’s where to really move the needle on on sleep, our obsession has been to bring all these things together. That’s why do we do? Why do we address EMS? Why do we address thermo regulation? Tox is because all of it are relevant, and all of it together really equate to proper sleep and performance sleep. So when it gets the EMFs, and it’s an interesting topic, because the EMFs were something specifically that, again, you can’t see, just like you can’t see the toxins, but it’s easily measurable to read toxic load in an environment where, whereas back in the day, when, when those were not so easily available, again, it was invisible. When it comes to EMFs, we don’t see them, right? So you get this. This is constant, erratic waves that come from cell towers and satellites and mobile phones. All of these signals are coming in in a very erratic behavior to come to the devices. It’s not linear, and it’s not the way our body’s harmonic organic wave is, because everything has a wave to it, rocks, trees, everything has an organic waves, our bodies as well. I had to find a direct link to measuring this before I bring it into a company like Accenture. So we actually connected with a doctor in Switzerland who had really showcased how blood cell behavior behaves erratic, just like the EMFs that are in our environment. And EMFs have changed. Whereas, you know, 30 years ago, we were talking about EMFs from microwaves and toasters and all your appliances, and grounding worked really well for those type of appliances, because those EMFs were coming from the appliances from your surroundings, and what the EMF grounding pads would do would be make sure that that went down to the ground, and it channeled down to the ground rather than going through your body. Today’s EMFs are a little different. They’re coming in from wireless devices. They’re coming from satellites, from antennas. So those are coming to us from everywhere. So just using a grounding mat is not the same, because now it’s still channeling through your body. Because it’s not coming from the ground up, it’s coming from the air down, so you’re becoming a channeling antenna to that. So what we had seen is through the dark field microscopy in blood cells, we were able to identify through his doctor is that grounding pads were not doing the job. The blood cells continued to behave erratic during phone calls, streaming and use of electronic equipment that was everything that was wireless. Reason we went deep into this is because we deal with a lot of professional athletes, and a lot of professional athletes are at a very young age in their lives, right? And that’s the one tool that they don’t want to drop out of. Because obviously you can block, you know, block away your home from the devices. But our goal is always to embrace technology and not make it impact our personal lives, and that we move forward with it through the change in our formula and adding in quartz in our latex formula, we had realized the quartz itself is a mineral that maintains memory and maintains whatever, whatever you give it as. So the wave that the courts had was able to mimic the organic waves of our body and become actually the dominant wave in the room. So we added the quartz specifically to our latex. It became the dominant wave. And basically those communication towers and everything that nd. You need to activate your phone. It All it needs is to come through. So if it follows a natural harmony wave to get to your phone, communication is delivered. However, we no longer had the erratic blood cell activity in the blood. So this became that bridge of an evidence based approach, that we are not blocking EMFs, but managing them so they don’t affect our bodies. So that’s what we’ve done at essential is not block EMFs, but manage their ways so that they’re not impacting our blood cells.

Dr. Mindy  

Okay, so, and what’s interesting, I want people to think about this and this again, when I learned about the toxins in mattresses, I was I rejected it, and I was like, just get a good mattress. And when I started to unpack all these things, I’m like, wow, how could sleeping be one of the most harmful or helpful things we do every day. So what you’re saying is that if you are, like, I’m in a house right now that is right near a lot of power lines. And I actually thought about this, I’ve been looking out at the power lines thinking, This isn’t really good to be like, I’ve been sleeping fairly well but, but that the and that’s just one example. EMFs are super invisible, lots of frequencies out there, especially if you live in a city, when you’re lying down, those frequencies are going into your body. And are those negative frequencies, and they are absorbing, being absorbed into your body? Is that correct? And that’s why, if you put the quartz in there, now, the quartz has a frequency that’s more healing and powerful than the other, the other

Jack Dell’Accio  

Correct, correct. And it’s, it’s not that. It’s it you’re absorbing them. We are absorbing them. They’re actually passing through and causing your blood cells to behave erratic and clump together. And so if you looked at the blood work that we actually have it on our website, we have all of the blood work showing, from all these tests that we’ve done, the blood cells tend to clump together during that EMF exposure, and the clumping together, what that leads to is less oxygen flow, basically restricting that oxygen flow from behaving properly and naturally. With the quartz, you no longer have that clumping of the blood cells, so that behavior behaves naturally, and it’s not obstructing the healing that needs to happen during sleep. It’s one of those things where, like you were describing. You can’t believe that sleep could be so bad. It’s kind of one of those things. Sleep is where we heal. Sleep is where everything positive happens in, not the right environment. Some positive healing happens, but not where it needs to be or not or it should be. I’ve noticed those because we, again, we started this company working for people who were ill and challenged and facing, you know, their their biggest health challenges, and it was easy for us to to see and understand what worked what didn’t work. Today, we work both with them, but we also work with pro athletes, and we learn from them as well, because they’re very much in tune and in touch with their bodies and how they’re performing. So it’s all about thriving and pushing the needle on how, how well we can do, how much better we can make sleep. And often we’ve seen it’s how we push the needle to getting more REM sleep, more deep sleep, and if we increase the percentage of those two and again, achieving this through eliminating toxins, eliminating the impacts of EMFs, we really see a huge change, and it’s a game changer. And you just become so much better at life when you sleep better, right?

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah, well, and that’s, you know, I I’ve always been an incredible sleeper, like, you give me like, two hour break, and I’m like, I’m gonna go take a nap. In fact, even in my practice, I would see patients in the morning, I’d go home, I would literally work out, and then I would get in my bed, and I would take a 20 minute nap, and then I’d go back in the afternoon. And so what ended up happening is that I just started to grab sleep wherever I could, and I loved sleep, and then I hit perimenopause, and I hit my 40s, and I couldn’t sleep, and it was so frustrating because I didn’t have that tool that I so desperately wanted. So I you know I had, do you have? Do you have, like, story? I’m sure you have plenty of stories, but do you have measurements outside of HRV, total sleep, REM sleep, deep sleep. Like, like, I know everybody’s gonna want some kind of guarantee that, like, hey, if I get on this mattress, it’s all gonna be life is gonna be great. But if we look at the mattress as a healing tool, like, that’s what I hear you saying, is the mattress should be a healing tool. So. Then what do we know outside of our own symptomatology is healing while we’re sleeping using the essential mattress.

Jack Dell’Accio  

Well, the beauty of these days is that we all get to have trackers, you know. So, so you can actually measure this. So, so what we’ve done, and what you can see on our site, is we did a 10 week study with 75 pro athletes that was a double blind study, and through, through basically seeing different different they happen to all be athletes. That’s what they had in common, that we just felt it was it, that was the study that we were putting together. But you know, from different genders to different ages, it’s a different lifestyles, because everyone had a different routine. Of you know that you have our super athletes that are committed to sleep and committed to eating well and committed to everything they do in their sleep hygiene, to others who are, you know, still going out and drinking and doing so we really got to see that every single player that were on the ascension mattresses all had minimum 20 and up to 60% improvement in deep sleep and REM sleep. So we know, and when we did that those tests a few years back, we immediately put quartz and everything you know. And I’m kind of an extremist that way, when I see something moves the needle, I make sure that our whole collection, we’re not about good, better, best merchandise. We’re committed to wellness and and then we’re that before a mattress company, we’re a sleep wellness company. And so that got integrated in the line. And soon after that, we’re getting our customers that are reaching back out to us and say, Hey, we’ve been tracking our sleep. I’ve improved my REM I’ve improved my deep they’re seeing the differences. So we know that everything we do improves sleep and the outcomes in your recovery, in your life, in your both mental and physical, will be improved because of it. It’s just, it’s an absolute. You know the only, only way we won’t change is if you’ve gone from our old mattress to our new mattress. Same technology that won’t be moving the needle. But ultimately, we know that if you, if you take care of all these segments, from toxins to EMFs to bodies natural thermal regulation to Posture Support, we’re taking care of all these things simultaneous. At the same time, we will be improving sleep. Then we get to another level when we talk about specific coaching, like, for example, we have some athletes that changed from, you know, they were retired, became pre menopausal, and all of a sudden they were getting sleep interruptions. So now we went to somewhere else. They’ve already got the ultimate tool for sleep. So how can I help them in some sleep coaching? What can we do differently? And some what I would tell them is, obviously the drop in estrogen levels interrupt the REM sleep, because estrogen helps with REM sleep, which is one of the things we’re always trying to increase. So what I would tell them is, okay, well, let’s, let’s change some of the habits. Make sure that you’re, you’re following your your schedule to a T, because your internal clock follows that schedule. Let’s, let’s back up eating. And you know, instead of three hours before sleep, let’s, let’s not eat four hours before sleep. Again, everything to try to help with a help healthy sleep. Exposure to light help trigger that natural circadian rhythm. So make sure, in the morning you are exposed to sunlight and daylight, get into certain routines that can help offset the hormonal changes that is happening. And the feedback has been positive from people that we would give that kind of coaching to. You know,

Dr. Mindy  

it’s funny, I was just sitting here thinking, I don’t even know if there’s like a health, a health standard for how often you should even change your mattress. Do you is there? Do Do we have any kind of is it mattress dependent? Some break down a little bit quicker. I know this is like a total segue from what you were saying, but I’m now thinking through all the mattresses in my house and thinking, is there like something I need to do different? So

Jack Dell’Accio  

ultimately, the life of a mattress as the problem is the mattress industry is almost like a cushioning industry. It’s not really a sleep wellness industry. So your mattresses are not necessarily built to go through your hormonal changes. They’re not meant to go through your lifestyle changes. So they’re not built for that. They’re just made built for comfort. And so because they’re just built for comfort, they’ll last as long as the materials don’t break down. So most people change your mattress when it’s hammocking, when they’re getting back aches and shoulder aches, it’s time to change. So it’s all physical, but I’m not really measuring the performance of sleep. Now, if you you know we’re doing this for 20 years, and we have people that are on their mattresses that they purchased from us 20 years ago, what I would say, if you’re a lifer with a sentia, the only reason to have change is. Because we’ve changed. You know, the mattresses we built 20 years ago, I would say that today, they would be the best in class mattresses, only short of our new mattresses, because we’ve only been put in quart for the last five years. We, you know, we’ve only optimized the thermal regulation the last five years. So you’re getting certain benefits today. So, so a person that would say, Hey, I’m looking to optimize sleep. I have an essential 2010 What do I expect from an essential 2025? It will be different. Not that the 2010 is bad, because we built it with the same, you know, idealism and making sure we built it right every single time. But but our learning, we’ve learned so much more. So there is no, no time frame. So in a sense, what we’ve built today happens to work for all your changes in life, lifestyle, hormone changes, just because, you know, in my research, I’ve realized that that is optimized sleep, even beforehand, even before you went those changes, what we’ve done to the mattress optimize your sleep, then that’s why we said, when I was specific athlete, that faced a change. Not that she was sleeping badly when she became pre menopausal, but she was getting sleep interruptions. She was waking up at two, three o’clock in the morning, which never happened before. So so she’s still on on the best possible surface available to her, so she didn’t need to change a mattress. But it’s like, that was like, Okay, well, let’s try some lifestyle changes. Let’s, let’s try making a few things to try to bring you back to what you’re used to. Because, again, this is someone who’s already prioritizing sleep. Yeah,

Dr. Mindy  

yeah, yeah. And I think that’s that’s like, when I look at somebody who’s in a health crisis, what I typically do is go, Okay, let me look at their lifestyle. And their lifestyle when it comes to sleep, is everything from the time they go to sleep to the room like being dark and cold to looking at like deep disk. So the people who may not know that deep sleep is is measuring how much the brain is detoxing, and REM sleep is measuring how much you can integrate new information that you learned that day into your brain. So I think that. And so when I would break that down with people, we would start to see like, Oh, your primary way in which your body is healing has completely gone off course. And so putting those pieces back together become really, really important. Can we talk a little bit about what you can expect with pricing on a mattress like, is, is more expensive gonna always be better? Is let like? Is there a way to tell like, you know, like, I’m a wine lover. If I go and buy wine like, sometimes I get tricked into the more expensive bottle, is going to be a better wine. And then the more you understand wine, the more you realize, wait a second, there’s cheaper wines that can also be amazing. Is the same thing with mattress. Does the price dictate what it can do for you? So

Jack Dell’Accio  

it’s interesting. I mean, I can speak of what we do at Essentia, so at Accenture, it’s specifically correlated to the performance, just because we don’t do anything for nothing. So in a sense, I’m not putting bells and whistles if it doesn’t need bells and whistles. So I’m not going to put something irrelevant, unnecessary in any bed, because, again, my goal is to keep them as available and affordable to everyone as possible. So in that alone, you are getting more but however, I think what, when people ask me this question, is, it all depends, how, how intensely serious do you want to take your sleep? So in the entry level product that we make, just to give you the example, the foundation of it stays true to what we believe in. It’s fully certified organic. There’s zero coils, there’s zero fiber batting. We formulated top layer, layer specifically for what we call our zero gravity, pressure redistribution, transition layer and all. It’s just the latex formulation that we’ve designed and formulated to give a really great support, great feel, and it’s an incredible product. So I stand behind that, that product 100% and the pricing is amazing. So why spend more? So now it’s How seriously do you take your sleep? Because the next level up and again. At one point, I take you back 15 years ago, what I would do is, whenever I would develop the next great thing, I would stop making everything else beforehand. And I remember, after two, three years of really limiting it to the greatest and the best only. Me, we had a customer to call back and said, Well, you know, we bought this bed from you four years ago. We want to get one for our second home. Do you have that same model? It goes well, no, we stopped making them because we we made it better and greater, and this was everything was about. And goes well, we didn’t really want to spend that budget, because with every new iteration and every improvement costs went up because we were adding certain essential oils and certain expensive features in the ingredients that brought that number up. So that’s when I realized, well, I need to make some of these iterations available to everyone. But every time we go up, it’s because we’re moving the needle on something. So when we get to our lifestyle, which is hypoallergenic, it’s all certified organic, durable, because our $1,600 bed will last 20 years, just like our $10,000 bed. They’re both made dense. They’re both made well. So you don’t really have a hard decision with ascension, because they’re all good. But when you go, just gonna say, how do people pick? Yeah, well, they pick on how, how obsessed they are with sleep. So when you go to next level up, you get to what we call our REM five, and it’s about thermal regulation. So our lifestyle is temperature, temperature neutral, whereas our REM five allows your body to naturally drop by five degrees over eight hour time lapse, which moves the needle on rem and deep. Yeah, that

Dr. Mindy  

really I just want, I just want to say that thermo regulating feature is really interesting, because the body does have to drop its temperature in order to get into these deeper states. And menopausal women know this. So, yeah, that’s really good. And then

Jack Dell’Accio  

we go above. From there is our REM nine, which drops nine degrees over an eight hour time left. So those are the main differences right there, because we know that those and the materials used for that because don’t forget, what’s interesting for us is we’re not adding a cooling device to cool you that we’re not adding chemicals with the most popular thing in mattresses is is phase changing chemicals, which when you touch them, they feel cool. They react to your body heat. You touch it, and you feel a cooling sensation. That’s a chemical reaction that makes you feel cool. To the reasons why those don’t work. Number one is it requires you to keep changing position to get a reactivation of the chemical reaction for you to constantly get the coolness. Well, those are sleep interruptions. Number two is you added chemicals, which we’ve talked about earlier, are disruptive to your central nervous system. So we we basically go from our lifestyle to our REM five to our REM nine, always chemical free. You know, to to achieve natural thermal regulation. What does that mean? Is we’re only going it allows your body to expel the heat that it needs to expel. So you’re not going to feel cold in bed, because you’re only discharging what your body needs to and if you are in a state of overheating, that’s when five and nine will make a difference for you, because the nine allows your heat to escape much quicker than the REM five. So those are those are different,

Dr. Mindy  

yeah, and here’s what I just want to say, because the whole purpose behind this conversation for my podcast and my listeners was, what do we need to think about when it comes to mattresses. And I was in practice for 25 years, and like the greatest mattress that my patients thought was ever created was the Sleep Number. And when I actually went to go look into the toxic load of the Sleep Number, it was really high. And so then I started to really analyze everything we needed to know about these mattresses and how it was the off gassing, it’s the temperature, it’s the EMFs, it’s like, all these things coming together. And I had not, I mean, I was putting, like I said, chili pads on and grounding sheets and blocking EMFs in that in my room, like doing everything I could to create the most healing environment for my body when it sleeps and and then when I heard what you all were doing, I’m like, wow, you’ve put it all in One mattress, which I’m not sure anybody has done that yet. So this is why this conversation was so pivotal to have with you. And the second thing I really you’ve said this three or four times now that I don’t want my listeners to miss when you say, Are you committed to sleep? It depends on how committed to sleep you are where my brain goes is. It depends on how committed to healing you are, because sleep and I use sleep all the time as an analogy to fasting people when they’re like when they go in to learn how to fast sometimes. Because they struggle to get into those fasted states. And they say fasting isn’t for me, and I always say fasting is a healing state you put your body in. Everybody can find their rhythm with it. We just have to figure out what blocks you it’s very much like sleep. Sleep is a healing state you’re putting your body in, but not everybody can sleep. So that was really important, because I think that we have a tendency just to think about how good our back feels or how comfortable it is. But I want people to walk away from this podcast and say, Your my your mattress, your bedroom, your whole environment that you’re sleeping in is a healing state. Would you agree on that?

Jack Dell’Accio  

Absolutely? And a few things that come to mind is, is you’re the expert on fasting. But insert for certain people, fasting may cause temperature and normalities where they may have a spike in body temperature, so that in those cases, more specifically, some a mattress that manages that thermal regulation allows more body heat to escape, kind of lets you through those, you know, dips and valleys of of going with some of the healing measures that you’re taking, like fasting. And it’s not just again, not just back and shoulder pain, it’s we’re talking about accelerating your recovery time, not just physical, but mental. We have players that, you know, they lot of the the situation with players is they deal with anxiety, stress. They have to learn what, what they’ve been taught that day. They need to learn plays, and it’s the retention. Retention happens through proper sleep focus. Anxiety is increased focus and eliminating anxiety happens through really good sleep. So healing is even just healing of the day. It’s not healing of only the major issues. You know, yeah, yeah,

Dr. Mindy  

yeah. So well said. Well, where can people find you? Do we have discount codes like and are there the other thing about a mattress that I think is really helpful. Do you have, like, order it, sleep on it. If you don’t like it, send it back kind of, kind of routine?

Jack Dell’Accio  

Yeah, definitely. We’ve got 120 day trials. I believe we, we, I’m sure we have a discount we’re offering to your to your listeners, but I also realize I put my phone on an airplane mode so she never got it.

Dr. Mindy  

That’s so funny. This is what happens when you get two visionaries together that you know we don’t know the logistics. So yeah, we’ll put the discount code. We

Jack Dell’Accio  

definitely have sleep trials. We’re here. We really we’re here because we really care about sleep wellness. So our team is really only trained for that. So they’re trained to help you. So anybody who has calls, you call our you chat with us, you 800 calls, and obviously we’ve got loads of information, and all the testing is are all on the on the learning pages of our website. It’s my essential.com Again, we’re here to help. We’re not here to sell you anything. We’re here to deliver wellness through sleep, is what we’re really, really committed to. So you won’t have anyone pressuring anybody to buy anything ever thank you. Yes, and you and I

Dr. Mindy  

align on that. You know, I feel really clear that the goal of health is to have great discussions like this and and to say, well, if this works for you, go for it. If it doesn’t, no problem. So thank you for taking on that same attitude

Jack Dell’Accio  

every time I speak to you. You’re really engaging, and you, you screwed me up this time. Because my team is always making sure, make sure, that I’m looking at the camera, but no, I’m looking I’ve been, I’ve been looking at you the whole time.

Dr. Mindy  

It wasn’t good. You know what? It’s so funny, because I have that when I’m I don’t look at the camera, I look at you, yeah, because I feel like what’s more important is that we build rapport and we have a great conversation so our listeners can learn from it. If we are not looking at each other, it’s all good. But yeah, I really appreciate this conversation, and I really hope people get a lot out of it. And where can people find the mattresses? We’ll leave links in the notes, but where else can they find you?

Jack Dell’Accio  

Well, basically, our we do everything direct to consumer through our website, so everything’s at my essential.com the Learn pages are really important. There’s a lot to learn. We even did some some testing for the military. Last year. We’ve been testing on eliminating mold in the sleep environment, which is a big trigger as well. Yeah, big problem as well. So, so we have, we have, we’ve reformulated all of our mattresses. They were already quite resilient to mold before. But we’ve, we’ve gone even further by increasing the acidity levels of our essential oils, organic essentials that we put in there. So we’ve. Taking that to a different level. So, yeah, there’s so much to learn at the Learn pages at my essential.com and then it’s, it’s, unfortunately, we don’t have showrooms around the country. We used to, but the demand of our product has been all online, just because it’s been referral based. Most of the time. We are in certain hotel properties, MGM Resorts. They have healthy travel rooms, which feature essential mattresses in but ultimately that it’s through that website that is where they’re available. We

Dr. Mindy  

didn’t even go into mold, I forgot, but just so we can sum that up, if you’re in a moldy house, but you have an essential mattress, you’re not the mold isn’t being absorbed into the mattress. Is that correct?

Jack Dell’Accio  

So no, it’s what it is is we’ve increased the acidity level of our essential oils to basically not make them thrive and expand the spores. Because mold spores just, they’re they just grow at a incredible pace. So what we’ve basically been able to identify through testing is we looked at the mold growth. What? Because it’s an external infection. This is not coming from your mattress, but it’s from your environment where the mold breaks on but a typical polyurethane mattress is the ideal environment for mold. The reason why is, one, you’ve got this sponge. Two, you’ve got the moisture that us humans bring into it from perspiration, body heat and everything creating this environment. So one of the things people tell you right away is, you know, don’t, don’t make up your bed right away. Allow it to air out, allow the sun shine in, right? So, so, because you want to be a dry surface all the time. So when we’ve when we looked at the issue a year ago, we realized that growth of mold spores is exponential on a regular mattress. It’s insane, but, and we then we looked at our essential mattresses, and it was about 90% less than the regular, than polyurethane than a regular mattress. But then how do we move the needle on that? And I realized by changing the acidity of the essential oils we were using, we went from 90% to 97% so we really were able to make it where mold spores would go on there and eventually die. Now, if it’s a true invasion of mold, well, they may win that battle, but our goal here was to minimize that risk, almost eliminate the risk of growth of mold within our mattresses. And I think we achieved that. And again, that was another thing. As soon as we I discovered that I put it on every single los Angel mattress, because it’s just part of good sleeping.

Dr. Mindy  

Well, Jack, you did not miss a beat. So I really appreciate the incredible thoroughness that you have approached one of the greatest healing containers, which is our sleep and our bedroom. So thank you for all of that, and we’ll leave links to everything and keep doing amazing work with helping people sleep and heal. I really, really appreciate what you all are up to.

Jack Dell’Accio  

Thank you. You are always easy and awesome to talk to. I look forward to reconnecting with you. Live in our paths will cross.

Dr. Mindy  

I’m sure they will cross later they will cross. Yeah, amazing. Appreciate you. Thank you so much for joining me in today’s episode. I love bringing thoughtful discussions about all things health to you. If you enjoyed it, we’d love to know about it, so please leave us a review, share it with your friends and let me know what your biggest takeaway is. You.