Insider Tips from 500+ Mattresses Tested (What Matters & What’s Marketing)

Nick Urban [00:00:01]:
You’re listening to High Performance Longevity, the show exploring a better path to optimal health for those daring to live as an outlier in a world of averages. I’m your host, Nick Urban, bioharmonizer, performance coach, and lifelong student of both modern science and ancestral wisdom. Each week we decode the tools, tactics, and timeless principles to help you optimize your mind, body, and performance. Your performance span, things you won’t find on Google or in your AI tool of choice. From cutting-edge biohacks to grounded lifestyle practices, you’ll walk away with actionable insights to look, feel, and perform at your best across all of life’s domains. Derek, welcome to the podcast.

Derek Hales [00:00:52]:
Hey, thank you so much for having me.

Nick Urban [00:00:54]:
This will be an interesting one because for people who are not familiar with you, Dare I say you have the most experience testing sleep-related interventions and products on the planet?

Derek Hales [00:01:04]:
I don’t know if I definitely have that title, but I certainly got to be up there among, among the best, I would think.

Nick Urban [00:01:09]:
Yeah. Tell me your backstory. What got you so interested in the topic of sleep to begin with?

Derek Hales [00:01:14]:
I really just started out with a personal problem. My wife and I got married in 2014. Right after we got married, we were moving to my apartment. We were sleeping on my old sort of innerspring mattress from high school. It was a full size. It was a very, very cozy bed for 2 people. So pretty quickly after getting married, we were in the market for a new bed. So we did kind of the whole in-store experience, went in, laid on a bunch of beds, found stuff we liked, but very expensive, you know, $4,000, $5,000, $6,000.

Derek Hales [00:01:42]:
Just couldn’t pull the trigger. We’re pretty frugal people and also just newly married couple, not much money to speak of. And so we ended up just taking a chance on these online beds that were just kind of getting started at the time. So we ordered one, $600 for a king size, all foam. It was okay, not great. So we ended up returning it, but that super easy return process, ordered another one. It was a little bit better. We liked it.

Derek Hales [00:02:05]:
We ended up keeping that one. And then really just, it’s kind of like a fun weekend hobby project. I just like thought to myself, I’m going to build a website. I’ll review these two beds. I’ll do a comparison. I put up my sort of research notes and some other things that I had just kind of learned by going in the store and just the whole kind of experience of like shopping and buying a bed. I just put it up on a website just not really thinking it would be crazy, but I was like, oh, this will be fine.

Nick Urban [00:02:28]:
Well, we’ll see what it will do.

Derek Hales [00:02:29]:
But it clearly struck a chord with a lot of people. People really liked the website, liked the reviews. They were asking me to test and review more. So we kept gradually testing and adding to the site. And within just a few months of launching the site, it was doing well enough that I had more than replaced my full-time income. And I decided, you know what, let’s give this a chance. Let’s let’s start my career as a full-time professional mattress tester.

Nick Urban [00:02:56]:
I want to go down both avenues with you. The one from the consumer standpoint, how you actually, like, your thoughts on this, like whether getting a mattress in store or online, all these different things you’ve already alluded to. And then also on the business side, how you went about like codifying your frameworks for evaluating these things. Let’s start on the consumer side because most people listening in will have some kind of experience there, or at least will, eventually have experience there. When you’re buying a mattress, is it a good idea to go into the store and to try those, or would you prefer an online route instead?

Derek Hales [00:03:30]:
I think it’s, uh, it could be a bit of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it’s great when you can go in and actually lay on beds, try them, experience them, really understand what feels good on your body, as long as you understand there are limitations there. You know, laying on a bed for a few minutes doesn’t really give you the full picture, and something in store may feel good, but then you get it home and you find out it doesn’t feel quite the same at home, or it’s just different when you’re lying on it for, you know, 8 hours a night. In addition, the— in some stores, certainly the experience with salesmen can be really aggressive. They can really sell you in a way that you think like, oh my God, this is such a no-brainer. I need to buy this. And then again, fast forward a few weeks, a few months, you may realize you’ve been sort of sold some things that aren’t actually true. So I think there’s, again, kind of a double-edged sword about going into the store.

Derek Hales [00:04:20]:
I think when we think about sort of, you know, in-store sort of traditional brick-and-mortar retail versus sort of online shopping experience, I prefer the online. That’s certainly where I, you know, pretty much everything I buy, I am buying online, including mattresses. Going back to 2014, it just comes down to you just get so much more mattress for your money. A $2,000 mattress online is going to be something like, you know, a $4,000 mattress, $5,000 mattress if you’re buying it in the store. So you just get more. The online companies just benefit from low overhead, lower transportation costs, no salesmen. They don’t have to have a building. So all these things that help make it less expensive let them offer just a better mattress for less money.

Nick Urban [00:05:05]:
Yeah, it seems like there would be obvious pros and cons to each approach. What about going in? I don’t know if the brick and mortar, the actual storefronts, carry the same brands as the ones that are online. I’d assume that most of the time they do not.

Derek Hales [00:05:19]:
Pretty much— I shouldn’t say everything, but I would say a majority of products that you see in store you can buy online. Though when it comes to mattresses, there is a lot of sort of like SKU variation, if you will. So let’s say the model in a certain retailer, they may have sort of a specialized version of a flagship mattress that like a big brand carries. And most retailers will sort of want like their own little special version. Sometimes it’s to make it a little bit more expensive, a little bit more luxury. Sometimes it’s because they want to market a particular set of features. Sometimes they want to make it a little bit like strip down the material quality. I think Costco is a good example of this where they, they take out some of the bells and whistles in order to offer a lower price.

Derek Hales [00:05:59]:
So, usually there is sort of, again, the sort of the chief flagship among major brands, and then they’ll have different sort of variations of that particular SKU. But this doesn’t really apply when it comes to most online mattress companies because they kind of, the flagship that they sell online, if they have a store, is going to be the same.

Nick Urban [00:06:17]:
Yeah. And then those bells and whistles you’re mentioning, how important are those, or are they really just like a good use of funds?

Derek Hales [00:06:24]:
I think in most cases when it comes to like additional bells and whistles on these sort of variation of different SKUs, it’s just, it’s just marketing stuff that they want to be able to tell a cooling story. So, all right, they’ll sprinkle gel or titanium or copper or what have you. So the salesman can now market, oh, this is the coolest mattress within this mattress brand’s lineup. And you’ll see that with different factors that if it’s If they want to market something that’s like all natural, organic, you know, we’ll see more in organic cotton covers and organic latex and so forth. Sometimes those are impactful and meaningful. I would say in a majority of cases, they, they end up being more marketing puffery than actual, like, high-impact features.

Nick Urban [00:07:08]:
I’ve always wondered about that because I’ve seen those same marketing claims that you’re mentioning right there. And I think to myself, okay, yeah, it’s the coolest in this brand’s lineup. But then again, like, what kind of difference is there between the two? Would I actually even notice any difference?

Derek Hales [00:07:21]:
It’s one of those things, if you had, you know, laid on both for, you know, weeks or months, yeah, you might notice a difference. But it’s one of those things, you know, like, has the best pizza in New York. Well, according to who? Do they try everything? It’s all mattress brands know that people want a cooler sleeping experience. It is the most important factor across, you know, US consumers when it comes to mattresses. And so Every mattress brand, whether it’s $10,000 or a $300 model, wants to talk about how cool it is. Now, they’re not all that cool, right? There’s, there’s going to be limitations on what a $300 mattress can do in terms of just cooling performance. So it’s one of those things you really have to, I think, have your guard up and understand that there are sort of functional limitations of how cool certain materials can be and how cool the model can be at a certain price point.

Nick Urban [00:08:10]:
So what are the factors that you consider when you’re evaluating all of the different mattresses or stacking them, comparing them head to head?

Derek Hales [00:08:16]:
So we have 10 different factors that we test for and 8 that we score for. The 8 that we score for include cooling, motion transfer, edge support, pressure relief, sex performance, company score, and material responsiveness. So those are sort of the 8 that we’re scoring for. And we also test for bounce and also— what’s the last one I’m thinking of? It’s slipping my mind now. But those are our primary testing and scoring factors.

Nick Urban [00:08:46]:
Does bounce actually matter?

Derek Hales [00:08:48]:
Yes and no. It’s one of those things where some people have very strong opinions on how much bounce they want in a mattress. They either really like bounce or they really hate bounce. Bounce, the reason we test for it but don’t score for it is because bounce is a factor that gets brought into our sex score. So our sex score, we look at 5 different factors. Bounce is the most important one. And so we’re taking an objective measurement of bounce and then applying that in a weighted scale to determine a 1 to 10 sex score.

Nick Urban [00:09:17]:
And I’m assuming for these measurements, you’re not just saying, okay, well, actually this one feels bouncier. I’m guessing you’re actually applying something like something consistent across the different beds.

Derek Hales [00:09:25]:
Yes. Objective, data-driven, quantifiable testing is— we live and breathe it here at NavLab. And so you’re right, just it’s not enough to just feel or sort of, you know, get a sense of, oh, that seems kind of high. No. So with respect to bounce, you know, we, we drop a medicine ball while recording with a high FPS camera. We see exactly how far that ball sinks into the mattress, and then how high the rebound is above the height of the mattress. We measure that differential at the pixel level, and then that lets us say to, you know, the 100th of an inch exactly how much bounce is in this thing. And then we can compare that to everything else we’ve tested.

Derek Hales [00:10:04]:
And it’s just an incredible, then, objective comparison that we can then take and say, hey, this is more bounce than the average, or it’s less bounce than the average, or it’s in the top. 20% of all mattresses by bounce height. And it really gives the rest of our tests, like, a lot of teeth that we go into actually talk about these things. So when I’m saying, hey, sex performance is better on this mattress, it earned, you know, so many points higher than the average, we can point to bounce and edge support and these other factors and the quantifiable data that went into that to really give us a really strong sense of just transparency and just belief and confidence in our measurements and assessments.

Nick Urban [00:10:43]:
How long would one of these reviews or comparisons take you? Because it sounds like even just the testing for one, that one test alone would take a long time.

Derek Hales [00:10:50]:
Yeah, so it is sort of about a 3-week process by the time something comes into our lab. We do our test, our photos, our initial video. We then digest all of the data, create an analysis based on that data, compile kind of all of, all the data, photos, and video clips into our single review. And then by the end of 3 weeks, we’ve kind of worked through step by step through our process of testing and production before we’re finally ready to publish it.

Nick Urban [00:11:16]:
Yeah. Wow. One thing I didn’t hear you mention on your scale anywhere is like the healthiness or lack thereof, the toxicity of the mattress and the different materials. Is there a reason?

Derek Hales [00:11:29]:
Well, it’s number one, it’s very hard to like test and know with absolute certainty when it comes to sort of the materials inside the mattress. And then even if we could know, sort of, I don’t know there’s a great way to say, okay, well, Latex should be a 10 because it’s a healthier material than memory foam, or memory foam should be an A because it’s healthier than polyurethane foam. Like, the, the sort of quasi, sort of, you know, gray area of sort of what’s healthy and what’s not healthy is, is tough. That said, I, I think it’s something that’s absolutely important. So we always discuss that. We would get into the material quality as much as we possibly can with all of these sort of, you know, facts and objective information about the materials so that if somebody is interested in latex or natural materials or organic materials or low-tox materials, we have that information available, and they can make a decision, you know, based on their personal preferences.

Nick Urban [00:12:25]:
So if someone wants a healthier mattress, which presumably is going to be low-tox, what do you recommend they look for?

Derek Hales [00:12:32]:
I sort of— all organic mattresses, and that usually is going to mean latex and latex hybrid mattresses. When it comes to organic materials, natural materials, latex Latex is the predominant mattress that we see mattress companies in the US making their mattresses out of. There is a smaller, very niche subset of some non-latex organic mattresses that will use huge amounts of wool or cashmere or cotton, other fibers that are not latex. But for the most part, we’re looking at latex and latex hybrids.

Nick Urban [00:13:08]:
I don’t know if you’re concerned at all about like the EMFs. I’ve heard that you don’t want to have a metal frame because that will be a magnet for EMFs essentially. And so perhaps like a different material there, if that was someone’s concern.

Derek Hales [00:13:20]:
Definitely. So when it comes to coils, they’re going to be steel. I’m hard pressed to think of a single example where we didn’t have a coil that wasn’t made out of steel. So if, again, if EMF is a concern, then yeah, you want to avoid coil mattresses and hybrid mattresses because those are going to have steel coils. So you’ll be looking at all foam mattresses, either all latex or all polyfoam or all memory foam or some combination of those material types if we want to make sure that we’re avoiding EMFs.

Nick Urban [00:13:44]:
Okay. And then for the firmness, that’s obviously a big topic people all care about when they’re evaluating mattresses in terms of the effect on the body and posture and restoration and sleep quality. Is there any difference or is it really just personal preference between extremely firm or extremely soft?

Derek Hales [00:14:03]:
I, I would say it’s personal preference within a range, and there’s some sort of guidelines that I think of. So the big thing I always say, if you’re not sure what firmness you need, go with the medium firm, 6 out of 10, where 10 is the most firm. The vast majority of sleepers need a medium firm feel. It creates the right dynamic between support and comfort and just gives an even feel that works well for most body types and sleep positions. That said, You can be someone that falls outside of that range. If you are a heavier weighted sleeper, you might need a little something firmer, especially if you’re over 300 pounds. Some people that are over 300 pounds are going to be best served by sort of HD+ size mattresses. There’s mattresses that are specifically tuned for a heavier body.

Derek Hales [00:14:43]:
On the opposite end of the spectrum, if you are a lighter weighted sleeper, let’s say someone that’s maybe around 100, 120 pounds or less, you may want something that’s a little bit softer. And again, this is because mattresses are sort of designed and tuned for sort of your average weight sleepers, let’s say 170 to kind of 220 pounds. So if you fall on the far end of that spectrum, you may find that a typical medium firm is sort of a little too firm. So you might want something that’s more of medium or plush feel to get you that right comfort dynamic. Side sleepers tend to want a medium to medium firm. Stomach and back sleepers tend to want medium firm to slightly firm. But most sleepers are going to be best served by that medium firmness.

Nick Urban [00:15:21]:
Okay. What are the other big factors that people should consider that perhaps are not top of mind when they’re choosing between different mattresses?

Derek Hales [00:15:30]:
One of the big ones that I always think about is weight, and it’s, it’s a weird one that not many people will mention. The reason I like weight is because in a world of like confusing mattress models, you’re not sure if this is good or this is better, or if you’re being sold something from the mattress salesman. You can’t hide the mattress weight. The mattress weight is the mattress weight every time, no matter what. And when it comes to weight, in general, heavier mattresses perform better than lighter weighted mattresses.. And this just comes down to you have more material that’s supporting and comforting the body. In addition, when it comes to both coils and foams in general, heavier coil units, heavier foam layers, denser foam layers simply provide better support, better comfort, and also last longer. So weight is a big one that, that I look for.

Derek Hales [00:16:18]:
Beyond that, I think price is also a good indicator to a certain point. And when I think about price, I really kind of start kind of in the middle, and it’s that most sleepers are going to can find a mattress that works well in, let’s say, the $1,500 to $2,000 price range for a queen. I do not think you need to be spending, you know, $4,000 or $5,000 or more on a mattress. There’s so many great options, whether we’re talking online or offline mattresses, that you just— you don’t need to spend a crazy amount of money. So I think save yourself the money, but, but do spend enough to get into sort of the level of material quality where you’re going to find a bed that’s going to last. And I think in my view, that’s at around $1,500 to $2,000 for a queen.

Nick Urban [00:17:00]:
And that’s assuming that you’re getting a reputable brand and there’s a justification for that price. It’s not overinflated. How do you go about like determining, okay, I’m at the $1,500 range, is this actually a good mattress or is— do they just mark the price way up and it’s actually a really cheap mattress?

Derek Hales [00:17:17]:
Yeah, I mean, that’s— I think that’s a tough one, right? I think the easiest way would be come check out our reviews. But I think beyond that, I think when, when you’re really seeing the sort of inflated prices, that’s more of an, of an in-store marketing behavior. We don’t see that as much with the online brands because the prices are always there. It’s easy to find price trackers. It’s easy to see what the price was, you know, last week and last month. So you can see if that they’re jacking the price up. But also there’s just so much competition and it’s so easy to, you know, go from, you know, maybe I’m going to buy this brand, all of a sudden this brand. So the, I think the pricing pressures when it comes to the online mattress brands are very severe.

Derek Hales [00:17:54]:
So you don’t really see that super inflated price. But, you know, certainly it’s kind of all of these are general guidelines. You will see, you know, certain brands, whether it’s online or retail brands, you know, doing some crazy stuff that is really not in the best interest of consumers.

Nick Urban [00:18:11]:
Yeah. I’ve heard from certain salespeople that you need to replace your mattress like every 2 or 3 years. I also don’t know if I believe that, and I haven’t replaced my mattress that frequently, and it seems to be just fine. What are your thoughts on how often you should be replacing mattresses?

Derek Hales [00:18:27]:
That, that is a criminal recommendation from that mattress salesman. Every 2 to 3 years. Absolutely absurd. Now, I think a good quality mattress should last around 10 years, sometimes a little less, sometimes a little more. Latex tends to last a little bit longer. Innerspring coil mattresses tend to last a little bit shorter. Lower density foams last a little bit shorter. Higher density foams last a bit longer.

Derek Hales [00:18:47]:
But in general, 10-ish years is about right for a quality bed.

Nick Urban [00:18:51]:
Okay. And then alongside mattresses, you’ve tested— I mean, first of all, how many have you tested? Over 500 in your years of doing it?

Derek Hales [00:18:59]:
Yeah, I think, I think we’re up to 510, 520, something like that in the last 11, 11 and a half years of testing.

Nick Urban [00:19:05]:
Wow. And so then what did you end up settling on? Or at least what do you currently have?

Derek Hales [00:19:08]:
So what I’m sleeping on now, what I’ve been sleeping on since 2017, is a mattress called Loom Leaf. It’s, it’s a memory foam mattress. Um, it isn’t a perfect mattress for everybody, and that’s sort of my viewpoint is there isn’t a perfect mattress for everyone. There’s a perfect mattress for you and me and each person based on what you prioritize. Uh, my wife and I love memory foam. We, we prioritize the feel of memory foam. We like the hug, we like the contour, we like the pressure relief, we like the low motion transfer. So even though it’s got some weaknesses— it’s a little bit warmer because it’s memory foam, the, the section performance is not as good because of the lack of bounce— uh, but we’re willing to give those things up a little bit so that we can get the things that we care more about in pressure relief and the comfort and the feel of memory foam.

Derek Hales [00:19:49]:
So for us, it’s been the perfect mattress, but it isn’t going to be perfect for everybody.

Nick Urban [00:19:54]:
Do you do anything in particular when you’re on the road traveling to optimize the mattress that you might not have control over or just to improve your sleep?

Derek Hales [00:20:01]:
The only major thing I do is I have a travel-size pillow that’s pretty, pretty small. I’m a stomach sleeper, so most places you travel with in the hotels, you know, big, big puffy pillows, not really ideal for stomach sleeping. So I really like to have a pillow that I’m at least going to be reasonably comfortable with. So I find that makes a big difference for me.

Nick Urban [00:20:20]:
When you’re at home, do you have any additions to the bed, either like cooling technology or tracking technology or anything to like help either improve the experience of it or like to understand how you can potentially improve?

Derek Hales [00:20:33]:
Yeah, I mean, I’ve tried kind of all those things over the years, but I really just keep it pretty simple. Aside from having, you know, a really nice pillow that’s like appropriately tuned to my positions and preferences and height, The big thing we spent a lot of money on was high-performance cooling sheets. So we sleep on a brand of sheets called SHEEX, S-H-E-X, I believe. They are a high-performance polyester, sort of like a Nike Dri-FIT type material. Incredible when it comes to moisture wicking, incredibly breathable, silky smooth. They just feel amazing. Aesthetically, they also look beautiful because they have a little elasticity to them. So you get a really nice smooth, smooth finish.

Derek Hales [00:21:08]:
But the big reason to buy them is they’re just incredible incredibly cool. When it comes to, to cool, it comes to sleep and staying asleep, deeper sleep, more restorative sleep, cooling is always one of those most important factors. So we make a big point to, to always try and sleep cool with, with those sheets.

Nick Urban [00:21:24]:
Yeah, it seems like social media fuels a lot of like the trends around sleep, and one of the ones I came across a couple years ago was bamboo everything. Bamboo sheets, bamboo pillowcases, bamboo all this and that. Are there any of those trends that you think are worthy? And like, what are your thoughts on bamboo?

Derek Hales [00:21:39]:
Yeah, I mean, bamboo has been a popular material for at least 15 years. That’s when I started seeing it sort of used more and more widely in kind of the same way. It’s silky, it breathes well, it generally wicks moisture pretty well. So yeah, I still think bamboo is, is a solid material. But you’re right, there’s always kind of like the flavor of the moment. Weighted blankets, I think, sort of had a big spike several years ago. Everyone was like, oh, you got to get a weighted blanket. Like, it’s the secret to good sleep.

Derek Hales [00:22:05]:
And I think for some people, it definitely makes a notable impact and a positive impact. But, you know, I tried it, my wife tried it, everybody on my team here at Nap Lab tried it, and nobody was really thrilled. Some of us disliked it more than others. But at the end of the day, after everyone had tried the weighted blanket, nobody wanted it. We, you know, we ended up just giving it away to somebody else because nobody felt like it was like nice enough to like continue to use. Just, it just wasn’t making a difference. Again, that’s not to say that others won’t find a different circumstance, but for us, it wasn’t a major impact.

Nick Urban [00:22:37]:
Are there any of those other things that your team uses that has made a major impact for either one or multiple of them?

Derek Hales [00:22:45]:
So my sort of main videographer, Kyle, is always going on about his linen sheets. So a few years ago, he bought a set of linen sheets. He, he wanted the sheets, but he ended up going with the linen because they were a little bit less expensive. And he loves them. They’re, again, incredibly cool, though they’re one of these that kind of has to be broken in. He said when he first got them, they’re a little bit rougher. It just takes time to sort of, sort of break in the linen and break that down. But once they did break down, then they’re just as soft as any nice set of cotton, but they breathe really well.

Derek Hales [00:23:14]:
He really liked the linen sheets. I think beyond that, I think it’s always interesting to see what my team ends up choosing to sleep on. Everybody that works here ends up getting any number of nice mattresses. If something comes through that we don’t need for long-term testing, they’re able to take that and use that in their homes. It’s been interesting to sort of watch, you know, the evolution of her. Oh, they like this one and then something new comes in and they make a swap. So Kyle also was sleeping on a really high-end adjustable for a couple of years, but ended up making a switch to a different memory foam hybrid recently just because he just likes the feel better. And even though there’s no adjustability to it, it just like it’s got the feel, the sinkage, depth, the contour that works best for him.

Nick Urban [00:24:00]:
How important is adjustability? It’s one of those things that I’ve seen, like, reports that AI is going to be able to adjust it in real time to help improve each of your different stages of sleep. And I’ve never used an adjustable bed, and it seems like it could be beneficial, but I haven’t heard that much about it.

Derek Hales [00:24:17]:
Yeah, I think when it comes to adjustable firmness, I tend to say it’s not all that important. I think adjustable firmness mattresses can be really interesting and helpful when you aren’t sure what firmness you need or you and your partner have very different firmnesses, or you know what you need and your needs kind of can change from night to night. But if you’re like most people, you sort of settle in on one firmness and then you’re kind of never going to change it. Or if you and your partner are like similar enough that you can sort of compromise on a firmness, then you probably don’t need it. The problem with adjustable mattresses is the technology is expensive. It’s, it’s, it’s electronics, it’s pumps, it’s app connectivity, and that stuff really gets the price up. So you’re going to be spending between, you know, let’s say $4,000 and $6,000 for a good quality adjustable, which is, you know, considerably more than you’re gonna have to spend otherwise. So if you don’t have to have the adjustable firmness, I think it’s better off to try to save the money and go with something that’s just sort of a regular mattress.

Nick Urban [00:25:19]:
Derek, without throwing any companies under the bus, have you uncovered anything particularly shocking during your testing of the different mattresses? Perhaps claims that don’t match their lived experience, or else Anything else?

Derek Hales [00:25:32]:
Yeah, I mean, constantly, right? We always make a point to sort of like look at like the product page to see what they’re saying this thing does, especially with respect to things like cooling and material. So we’ll test, you know, cooling clamps out. They say it has a cool cover. Well, well, does it? They say it’s cool to the touch. Is it? And then we just, you know, explain what our experience is like. I think one of the most shocking, and I won’t, I won’t name the brand, but it’s a It’s one of the largest brands in the world. During our sort of research around fiberglass— so fiberglass is a material that some mattress manufacturers will use as an inexpensive way to meet US federally mandated fire regulations in mattresses. And so it’s just, it’s cheap to do it.

Derek Hales [00:26:18]:
So that’s why a lot of brands like it. But consumers, especially in recent years, have become really aware of this and don’t want fiberglass in the bed because it gets out. Irritates the skin, gets in the lungs, causes rashes, gets in everything. It’s, it’s terrible. And so we did a huge research project to try to understand, you know, looking at the top sort of like, you know, 400 models we’ve tested, who’s using fiberglass and who isn’t. And part of that research, just, we just asked the brand like, okay, is there fiberglass in this mattress? And this particular brand was very sneaky. What they said was, there is no fiberglass in the COVID or the foams. If you’re a layperson, you’re like, oh, problem solved.

Derek Hales [00:26:56]:
But, but what they didn’t say was there is a cover in between the COVID that has the fiberglass in it. So it basically wraps the mattress, then they have the exterior cover. And it was just so, just shocking that a brand at this size would, would say this. And just really disappointing. So I think that’s probably the most egregious and shocking example I’ve seen. But If you are someone that’s looking at the sort of fiberglass, you’re asking companies whether or not they use it, you have to be very pointed. And the question that I always ask is, is there any fiberglass anywhere in this mattress product? And if the answer is anything but no, the answer is yes. And they will do everything they can to sort of, you know, not really answer the question because they don’t— they won’t lie, but they won’t fully tell you the truth either.

Derek Hales [00:27:46]:
And so It’s, it’s unfortunately a problem here in the US when it comes to fiberglass in mattresses.

Nick Urban [00:27:50]:
Okay. Yeah. And for anyone who’s concerned about the health of their mattress, they want to go organic and they want to avoid some of these things. Are there certain, like, either certifications you want to look for or checklist? Does not have fiberglass, does not have this and that, and it does have these things.

Derek Hales [00:28:07]:
Yeah. So when it comes to those sort of organic natural type certifications, we’ve got GOLS and we got GOTS. Those are the two big ones. You also have Eco-Institute and a handful of others. They usually have the badge right iron, because they’re very proud of these things. These things are also very expensive. A lot of them require sort of like supply chain monitoring to like verify that they’re actually doing all the things that they’re supposed to be doing. So that’s definitely something worth looking for.

Derek Hales [00:28:32]:
Fortunately, when it comes to sort of natural and organic mattresses in the US, the marketing is not super sketchy. You know, they’re— I’d say it’s generally pretty, pretty truthful, pretty direct, because it’s really hard to be disingenuous when it comes to organic. If you’re, if you’re using latex, latex is a natural product. Now there are ways to make latex that is not organic, but all latex, if it’s actual latex, is a natural product. It comes from latex rubber trees. They cut it off and drip it off and then basically get it into molds. Um, I think that the stuff to look for is when they’ve mixed latex with other foam products. Uh, Then you can get in a situation where it might not be totally clear how much of the mattress is actually natural, how much is actually organic.

Derek Hales [00:29:20]:
Watch for stuff where they just sort of talk about the organic cotton cover. If that’s kind of the only place you see organic mentioned, well, that’s the only place where it’s mentioned. And so that may be an otherwise normal sort of mattress with springs and polyurethane foams, but just wrapped with an organic cotton cover. And for some people, that’s what they want. That’s perfectly nice. But if you’re in the market for like a total organic mattress, a total natural mattress, you’re going to end up paying a little bit more to get those materials with the appropriate certifications. So to get basically the level of non-toxic you’re looking for.

Nick Urban [00:29:54]:
Okay. Yeah. I mean, it sounds like for health purposes, having just a cover that’s organic would be superior to not having anything organic. But then, of course, having the full organic mattress and cover and everything, that’s going to, for health reasons specifically, win.

Derek Hales [00:30:09]:
Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s a good way to think about it. Sort of the more natural, the more organic. Again, if that’s important to you, you have a high sort of, you know, consciousness about, you know, your health there. Definitely the more material you have, the better it’s going to be. And understand that like the scale from sort of nothing all the way up to full organic, sort of you can find mattresses at every level. Basically, the closer you get to sort of full organic, the more you’re going to end up spending. And then when mattress brands don’t have to use organic or materials natural natural materials, then they can have the price a little bit lower.

Derek Hales [00:30:42]:
So there’s always kind of a trade-off between sort of price and sort of material, natural, and organic components.

Nick Urban [00:30:49]:
I’ve heard you mention or distinguish between organic and natural multiple times now, and I know in the food industry there is a difference and it can be very complicated and deceiving. In the mattress industry, is there a difference between organic and natural?

Derek Hales [00:31:03]:
Yes. Yes. So all latex is natural. But not all latex is organic. Only certain types of latex meet the qualifications for organic. And so you’ll really want to, again, watch that if full organic is important to you. Now, in my view, I think the health benefits from moving up from, let’s say, polyurethane foams and memory foams to an all-natural mattress is significant. I think that the bump from going from natural to organic is less dramatic and more comes down to, certifications and really precise things with how the foam is poured and cured.

Derek Hales [00:31:45]:
That’s really how we get to like the difference between sort of all-natural latex and latex that is both all-natural and organic.

Nick Urban [00:31:52]:
And then if we take a hard pivot here and go towards your interest in sleep as it’s developed after you got into the industry, clearly you got into this for your own personal reasons, and then it’s— you’ve built a business and have been been fully immersed in it for the last bunch of years, last more than a decade now. Yeah. What, what has your view of sleep morphed into these days?

Derek Hales [00:32:15]:
I think sleep has definitely become a sort of a bigger priority for me, especially consistent, good sleep. You know, sort of growing up, I was always a night owl, staying up late, sleeping in on the weekends. And maybe that’s just sort of a product of youth more than me being a particular night owl. But I think in this sort of industry, even though I’m not a sleep researcher, I’m more of a mattress researcher, I’m just surrounded by the studies and research in the world of sleep. And so you can’t just constantly read just study after study after study saying, hey, sleep is important for your health. Sleep is important for your health. Get 7 to 8 hours a night, you know, reduce noise, reduce light, do all these things to improve your sleep without it sort of like setting in. So So I think it’s one of those things where as I’ve gotten a little bit older, it’s become a bigger priority again, just to make sure I’m getting that consistent sleep.

Derek Hales [00:33:07]:
If for the only reason that I feel terrible when I’m not getting good sleep. I mean, my, my, my, the, the things that I got to do at work don’t stop because I got a bad night’s sleep. My kids don’t stop needing me because I got a rough night’s sleep. So I really try to make a big point to always get a you consistent, know, good 7 to 8 hours a night.

Nick Urban [00:33:25]:
And from what you’ve described so far, it sounds like your whole sleep routine is fairly minimalist. You don’t have a crazy protocol. You do. You don’t mouth tape, you don’t, uh, use nose strips, any of that kind of stuff. Perhaps, perhaps you have some other things. Like, what would you say goes into a night of Derek’s optimal sleep?

Derek Hales [00:33:43]:
Yeah, I think you kind of hit the nail on the head with it with the minimalist. I am sort of a minimalist more broadly speaking, but in the world of sleep as well. So my routine, if you will, again, is, is simple. Number one, I try to make sure I get 7 to 8 hours a night. Number two, I I try and keep a consistent bedtime. I go to sleep at roughly 11 o’clock and I wake up at roughly 7:30. And I really try to be consistent there, whether it’s a weeknight or a weekend. And then the last thing I do is just a general sort of calming down as we get within especially like 1 hour of sleep.

Derek Hales [00:34:16]:
If I am playing, like I’m a big video gamer, if I’m playing, you know, super competitive games right up until I’m trying to go to bed, that’s always a recipe for, being up a little bit later, try to, try to be off screens as much as I can within that last hour. And I’d say sort of the last big thing that I try to do, it really begins much earlier in the day. I try to take a walk during the day. Again, number one, getting some exercise, getting some sunlight, just getting out in the fresh air is important. And then for me, the time with the walk is just a mental decompression, mental processing. If I don’t do that at some point during the day, it’s going to happen at night. And I don’t want that to happen when when I’m, I’m laying down at 11 o’clock watch trying to go to sleep. So taking a little bit of time to, again, just sort of process what’s gone on during the day so that I’m not having to do that later at night has been helpful as well.

Nick Urban [00:35:06]:
I’m a bit surprised you don’t actually quantify or track your sleep with numbers and data, but it seems like that’s a big part of your business and it seems like you’re overall a numbers and data guy.

Derek Hales [00:35:15]:
Yeah. And so I’ve, I’ve done kind of every sort of major sleep tracker, uh, over the years and I’ve always found the data kind of like it’s interesting, but it never really like changed my pattern significantly. When I first started doing it, it was like very obvious, like, oh, my sleep, I am not going to bed at the same time. Oh, I’m not sleeping as much as I thought I was. Oh, I’m, I’m getting different numbers of hours from, from night to night. So I think initially it was like, it was super helpful because it gave me this awareness of just kind of how mediocre my sleep was. It also made me realize, oh, maybe that’s why I have been sort of lethargic lately and low energy and all these other things. And so the initial sort of testing was super helpful.

Derek Hales [00:36:01]:
But once I sort of like established better patterns and habits, as I was, it just felt sort of kind of pointless for like continued testing because I wasn’t learning anything new. I was, I was just so consistent from tracker to tracker, from week to week, from month to month. I was like, okay, well, these sort of trackers have served their purpose in my life and they’re no longer sort of, you know, helping me. So I’m just not going to deal with the trouble of using them.

Nick Urban [00:36:25]:
Yeah, that makes sense. And also, like, once you figure out the patterns, you make your lifestyle as stable as you need it to be, and then you don’t need to track anymore because you already understand what inputs cause what outputs.

Derek Hales [00:36:37]:
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Nick Urban [00:36:39]:
But on the business side, you need to keep reviewing new products, comparing them. What’s your process there? After you review a mattress, let’s say, I’m guessing you keep it, you hold on to it for use in the roundups you’re doing, comparing other mattresses head to head. So do you just have a huge warehouse full of 500+ mattresses?

Derek Hales [00:36:57]:
Not quite that big, but it is big. So yes, we have a little warehouse. I think we’ve got maybe 60 or 70 mattresses currently. We always try to make a point to keep what I consider like the pantheon, basically the most popular kind of highest performers. We try to keep on hand and everything else we let go. So, but yeah, we do make a point to, again, keep those in the event we have to do any sort of follow-up tests or photos or videos.

Nick Urban [00:37:20]:
How often do mattress companies release new models? Are you having to go out and get each year’s latest model or is it less frequent than that?

Derek Hales [00:37:27]:
Less frequent than that. I would say something like every maybe 3-ish years on average we see you brands, know, sort of refreshing their lineup. Some are more than that, some are less than that. If they’re launching new products, you know, those could kind of come at any phase. But if they’re just refreshing existing models, I would say roughly every 3 years, but it does depend kind of from brand to brand.

Nick Urban [00:37:49]:
With technology, sometimes there’s breakthroughs that really render the older devices obsolete, or at least far less efficient. And there’s a whole ecosystem built on the new operating systems and the new hardware, all that stuff. With sleep, do you ever see big reasons like, okay, this new feature is released and it cools even better than the previous generation, like dramatically better, and then it makes upgrading actually make sense even if you only have a mattress that’s, say, 3 years old?

Derek Hales [00:38:14]:
I think when it comes to mattresses, the sort of product evolution cycle is a lot slower than it could be for like technology. And yet it doesn’t feel all that different than sort of, let’s say, cell phones, sort of modern cell phones today. You know, it’s sort of iterative improvements now. So it’s really hard to like justify upgrading your cell phone every 2 years now if the increase in performance is maybe only like 10 or 15%. I think mattresses are kind of the same way. And I think this really comes down to just sort of the material science around mattresses is very like slowly evolving. And slow growing. So while we do see improvements, the, the types of improvements are, I think, relatively small when we think of sort of mattress sort of generation to generation.

Derek Hales [00:38:56]:
Now, if it’s been 10 years since you’ve got a mattress, yeah, we’re going to see a bigger upgrade from model to model. But if your last mattress you bought was 3 years ago and you buy a similar quality, similarly priced mattress today, the, the performance quality is not going to be substantially different. Front.

Nick Urban [00:39:12]:
Yeah, that’s what I figured. Since you’ve been in this industry for a long time, where do you see NAP Lab going? Where’s the story going to take you?

Derek Hales [00:39:23]:
That’s a good question. I think in the immediate term, we want to continue to do what we do best, which is test mattresses. So we’re always looking for ways to be bigger, better, to improve our process, to improve our data. One of the things that we are working on rolling out now is mattress durability testing. So to durability test a mattress, you’ve got this big machine that industrial basically It’s an arm that rolls a gigantic rolling pin back and forth across the mattress. You roll that pin 100,000 times over basically 24/7, 5 days of testing, and that gets you a basically accelerated sort of 10 years of use. And then we can use that same machine to measure, okay, how, how, how softer is this mattress at the end of the test compared to the beginning? How much is it sagging compared to the beginning at the end? And so I think those sorts of metrics are super interesting and super helpful And again, we don’t have to believe when a mattress brand says they’re quality or they’re using the best materials. We can test that and then publish that data and then compare that data to everything else.

Derek Hales [00:40:24]:
And I think that’s going to be, I think, really interesting once we have a sufficiently large enough library of data to really understand, you know, the differences between that $10,000 mattress and the $1,000 mattress. I suspect the performance differences on some of these are going to be very small. And I also suspect there’s going to be some really shocking sort of revelations on for some brands that have been, you know, really beaten that, oh, we’re just so much better story. And then we run them through the durability machine and find out the differences aren’t that dramatic.

Nick Urban [00:40:53]:
Take us into your mind. How do you decide? How do you prioritize what to focus on, what to test? Because there’s a lot of different places you could go, areas that you could explore, tests you could run, data you could collect. And clearly there’s limited resources, time, energy, all these constraints of living and you chose this one specifically.

Derek Hales [00:41:13]:
Yeah. So when it, when it comes to like what we select for, for mattress testing, it really just comes back to popularity. I want to review products that my readers and viewers are interested in. I don’t want to review just super cheap beds. I don’t want to review just super expensive beds. We want to find the things that people are interested in, that they want to read the review for, the types of things that they might conceivably buy and keep our focus there. So So that really is kind of our north star. And when we follow sort of popular, we’re still getting a wide range of price points and material types and mattress types.

Derek Hales [00:41:47]:
So we still get a lot of different things through the lab. But at the end of the day, I think of my sort of readers and viewers like these are my customers. I want to make them happy. And the best way I can make them happy is giving them what they want.

Nick Urban [00:41:59]:
Yes. And do they ask for durability testing specifically?

Derek Hales [00:42:02]:
Yes. I mean, over the years, it’s been one of those things that you people, know, constantly come back to like, oh, we love your data. We love this and that. Like, where is the durability testing? And at the time, I, you know, I could point like, well, you know, here’s my thoughts based on material quality, or we’ve seen the foam densities here and I think that’s what these mean. But nothing is going to be as like absolute as an objective durability test. So that’s— it’s been something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. And we finally were in a place financially to sort of make the investment in, get the machine sort of, you know, built and set up and and testing, and I’m really excited about the learnings that we’re going to get out of that machine.

Nick Urban [00:42:39]:
Yeah, how cool. At the same time, Derek, there’s a lot of people asking you to test different things as well, and I’m sure you have other ideas of experiments you can run, but you chose this one specifically. And what went into that thought process and that ultimately the decision for you?

Derek Hales [00:42:54]:
When you say this one, you mean mattresses?

Nick Urban [00:42:56]:
The durability testing specifically.

Derek Hales [00:42:58]:
I think it felt like the biggest gap in our reviews. We have, I think, great data and information around performance and feel in a lot of different areas, in ways that are both really, I think, interesting and data-driven, but also like very digestible. You can see a bounce test and understand just by watching it, oh, I understand what that means, right? You can see an edge test and see, oh, he’s sinking a lot. Also, that number is big. Also, he said it’s worse than average. Okay, all that makes sense. Durability testing is that’s again, I think the last sort of big testing hurdle that we just, we just don’t have data on. And so being able to quantify, you know, durability testing and speak authoritatively, I think is really important.

Derek Hales [00:43:46]:
And it also, it just, I think it gets to sort of the biggest thing, which is understanding, understanding differences between not only brands but price points. When we can look at, you know, let’s say 100 different mattresses that have all been tested with a durability machine, and we’ll be able to see, see things like, okay, well, these models have the worst sagging. And then we can look and say, well, are all those cheap models? Are they all expensive? Are they all mid-tier? That’s going to be really helpful because it’s going to put an immediate, I think, sort of spotlight on one of the things that’s something so important to sleepers, which is sagging and body impressions. It’s one of those things that I see people complaining about all the time. They bought this mattress, they liked it initially, but they’re in year 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, whatever, and now it’s sagging. It’s formed a permanent body impression. The brand won’t replace it from the warranty. And this machine is going to let us see which beds are more likely to sag than others.

Derek Hales [00:44:46]:
And I think then again, put the spotlight on those models that are not doing so great. Great, and perhaps most importantly, the ones that do, do a fantastic job when it comes to durability and resisting sagging and body impressions.

Nick Urban [00:44:59]:
So with this machine specifically, it’s going to actually like replicate real sleeping patterns, because if it just went all the way up and all the way down the mattress, very few people sleep like that and they’re constantly in a different place. It’s usually the, the wear will concentrate around certain areas.

Derek Hales [00:45:14]:
Yeah, so the way this machine works is again sort of giant rolling pin that rolls left, left and right on the mattress. It has another, um, basically add-on to the machine that basically pushes a sort of a human-shaped butt sort of down the mattress, up the mattress, down the mattress. It’s called a Cornell test. And the idea is kind of the same thing, to put sort of pressure, but especially on the edge of the mattress, so you can see how the edge wears over time. So this test is not like a custom thing we built. It’s not specialized to us. It’s part of ATSM’s basically mattress testing standard protocol for the Americas. And so it’s— if you’re looking it up, it’s ATSM F1566, uh, rollator testing.

Derek Hales [00:45:56]:
And so that’s— we are just sort of doing what the industry has been doing all of these years. So every mattress manufacturer has this machine, um, and they are running this machine, but they don’t share this data. I don’t think I’ve ever seen public data shared for mattress durability rollating Cornell testing. And so we are trying to basically to take the thing that the manufacturers are already doing, already doing, run that test and just show the data. Like, here, here’s the data. You can, you can then decide what to do with that for yourself.

Nick Urban [00:46:29]:
Cool. I didn’t realize that it’s an industry standard and that brands are all doing that. They’re just choosing not to release their data and the results.

Derek Hales [00:46:35]:
Yeah, it’s, it’s unfortunate. And I don’t understand why if you were a brand that crushed this test, why you wouldn’t release the data, it would just seem so obvious. This. But for whatever reason, we just don’t see mattress brands releasing this data.

Nick Urban [00:46:51]:
How do you reconcile the fact— this is another pivot right here— like certain countries, they put very little emphasis on their mattresses and/or they don’t really use mattresses the way we do. Japan comes to mind. Yet they seem to also sleep well on the aggregate level. What’s your thought there?

Derek Hales [00:47:09]:
I think if you look at it sort of on the aggregate level, it probably means that we complicate things more than we need to here in the US. But it also becomes one of those things that’s sort of culturally ingrained with kind of like how you grew up. Like if you are Japanese and you grew up sleeping on a futon and very hard, very thin mattresses on the floor, then you can probably sleep on those, you know, as an adult and as you get older. But if you are, you know, you know, an American that grew up sleeping on more traditional innerspring mattresses with foam and pillow tops and quilted covers and so forth, and you try to sleep on a super hard Japanese futon, it’s not that like that’s a bad bed, it’s just sort of bad for you. Your body’s not used to it, it’s not accustomed to it, and I find most people can’t adjust to that feel. But I think more broadly it means, yeah, we, we in the US in particular, we probably do overcomplicate things when it comes to sleep and mattress products.

Nick Urban [00:48:03]:
Because also it’s like, yes, you aren’t accustomed to it and it feels really uncomfortable because you’re not accustomed it. Do you think over time, like say a month of sleeping on that, or like a gradual transition over a period of a month, and like all of a sudden I could do really well on a firm mattress or a really soft mattress?

Derek Hales [00:48:21]:
I think you could get accustomed with enough time. If that’s a month, I, I think probably not. Like if you’ve been sleeping on a, on a medium hybrid mattress, you could probably get up to a medium firm in a month. Could you get up to an extra firm? I don’t think so. Could you go down to an extra soft? I don’t think so. It’s just such a such an extreme difference than what your body is sort of used to that it would be really hard to make that shift. I’ve had a handful of readers email me over the years, particularly Japanese futon. That’s sort of always kind of been like the zeitgeist is like, oh, like it’s simple, it’s inexpensive.

Derek Hales [00:48:56]:
The Japanese sleep great. Why wouldn’t it work great for us? And like months and months, they’ll try and try it. And they’re just like, I just don’t understand. I can’t, I don’t like this. And sort of no matter how much time they gave the body, they just can’t make adjustments. I’ve had a few people that have made adjustments, so kind of your mileage will vary, but I think it’s, it’s harder than most people would imagine to make that change.

Nick Urban [00:49:18]:
Yeah, and especially if you’re sleeping uncomfortably for weeks or months or many months, it’s going to be difficult to convince yourself when you have a much more comfortable bed available to you.

Derek Hales [00:49:28]:
Absolutely.

Nick Urban [00:49:29]:
Are there other factors when it comes to sleeping and in our relationship with mattresses that are worth consideration, like perhaps the height of the mattress or other things that people might not think about at all?

Derek Hales [00:49:40]:
At least here in the US, height is generally associated with better performance, same way that weight is. Mattresses that are taller tend to perform better, and this is because there’s just more stuff in the mattress that can support and comfort the body. When mattresses get really thin, again, here in the US, it typically means we’re seeing a reduction in material quality in order to hit a certain price point. I don’t generally advise adults to sleep on a mattress any thinner than 10 inches. Anything thinner than that and the performance, the quality drop-off ends up being more severe.

Nick Urban [00:50:16]:
Then for mattresses, if you have a nice mattress, I’m going to guess you wouldn’t necessarily want to add a mattress topper on top of it. If you had a lower quality mattress, would a topper be a good idea?

Derek Hales [00:50:26]:
I think toppers can be a good idea in a couple of different situations. First, if you are stuck with a mattress that you can’t replace, but you need some relief You need something. Yeah, get yourself a topper. Generally, 3 inches, 4 inches is sort of, you know, where you want to be. It needs to be thick enough to provide enough sort of pressure relief and comfort. As you get thinner than that, it’s not as likely to make an impact. In addition, I think toppers can be a good choice when you and your partner have very different needs. Let’s say you buy a firm bed, your wife loves it, you hate it, you need something softer.

Derek Hales [00:50:55]:
Get yourself a soft 3-inch memory foam topper. That’s going to give you the pressure relief you need, and everybody can kind kind of keep the peace. I don’t generally think of toppers as a great long-term solution simply because it feels like a Band-Aid solution. It’s, it’s not going to be like— it sometimes will have people that want to buy a cheaper mattress and then put a topper on top of that mattress. It could be an okay solution, but in general, I think it’s best to kind of take the combined funds of those products and instead just get a mattress that actually fully meets your needs as opposed to a mattress that doesn’t meet your needs and/or is lower quality and then trying to again, band-aid the solution together.

Nick Urban [00:51:34]:
One thing I didn’t ask you about is resistance to things that you don’t want to be sleeping on top of, like for example, mites and then probably mycotoxins and stuff like that. Are there any best practices there or things that people should know before they choose a mattress or to extend the longevity of the mattress so you don’t have issues with those?

Derek Hales [00:51:53]:
I think two big things. Number one, wash your sheets weekly. After one week of sleeping on a set of sheets, the bacteria per inch is something like 8 million per square inch. It is astounding. So weekly washing, washing your sheets, I think. And then number two is get a high-quality waterproof mattress protector. That’s just a super thin sheet-like thing, goes directly on top of the mattress. Then your sheets go on top of that.

Derek Hales [00:52:18]:
That’s going to prevent, again, the mites, the dust, the bacteria, dirt, debris, moisture, etc., from getting down into the mattress. Without that protector, over time, those things are going to gradually build up and cause bigger problems. But with a mattress protector, those things stay out. Mattress protector can go in the wash with the sheets, though you really don’t need to wash them as often. Generally, I think washing your mattress protector about once a month is fine.

Nick Urban [00:52:44]:
Huh. Okay. Okay, are there any other tips, tricks, hacks like that that might seem obvious to you that your layperson who hasn’t studied sleep or tested 500+ mattresses might not know?

Derek Hales [00:52:56]:
Uh, sure. So another sort of big one is rotating the mattress. You don’t need to flip the mattress, but rotating it— generally a new mattress, you want to rotate it at 6 months and then 12 months, and then every 12 months after that. Rotating the bed just helps it wear more evenly, break in more evenly, So always a good idea to rotate the mattress, but do always see what your mattress manufacturer recommends. If you can find their guidelines and guidance, sometimes depending on the model, it can be a little bit different. But in general, 6 months and then every 12 months after that. Pillows are another really big one. We’ll see people spend $3,000 on a mattress and then be sleeping on the 2-for-20 pack from Target.

Derek Hales [00:53:36]:
Pillows make a big difference. So spend a little bit of money on a pillow. In my view, sort of $80 to $120 is kind of the sweet spot for a really high-quality pillow that should last many years. Avoid the super cheap, I think, polyester pillows if you can. Those are going to just not last as long, not provide us the greatest support. When it comes to pillows as well, you do want to replace those at some point. Most manufacturers will recommend replacing the pillow every 1 to 3 years. That feels a bit extreme to me.

Derek Hales [00:54:09]:
I, I think every 2 to 5 years is fine. If you use a pillow protector, you’re going to get a little bit longer. Again, more, more like 4 to 5 years, just because the, the materials in the pillow also break down the same way the materials in your mattress are going to. So eventually, that pillow that was great on, you know, night one, after, you know, 3, 4, 5 years, those materials are broken down. So I think it’s a good idea to not forget your pillow when it comes to your sort of replacement schedule.

Nick Urban [00:54:36]:
Yeah, I didn’t realize there are pillow protectors. That’s something I have to look into.

Derek Hales [00:54:39]:
Yeah, they’re not expensive. Sort of just, you know, super, super thin things to go around the pillow. Same thing as the mattress protector. They just keep water, moisture, dust, mice, etc. Oh, wash your pillow. Wash your pillow, please. The— it’s just like we have bacteria building up on your sheets. That bacteria is going to eventually build up in the pillow.

Nick Urban [00:55:01]:
Pillow.

Derek Hales [00:55:01]:
Of course, if you have the, the pillow, uh, the sheet on your pillow, that’s most of the will bacteria be on that, but some of that will penetrate without that pillow protector. So having that protector just keeps all that bad stuff out.

Nick Urban [00:55:12]:
Nice. Got it. Okay. Well, Derek, if people want to connect with you to check out NAP Lab, where do you want to send them?

Derek Hales [00:55:19]:
Uh, so just head on over to our website at naplab.com. That’s naplab.com. There we have our reviews, comparisons, best of guides, education, and a whole lot more. We also have our Mattress Finder quiz there, answer a few questions about your needs, preferences, and budget that go straight to me or a member of my team, and we send you back a personalized recommendation within 24 hours.

Nick Urban [00:55:37]:
Very nice. I’ll have to try that. If people have made it this far, what’s your final takeaway you hope they leave here with?

Derek Hales [00:55:44]:
I think the biggest takeaway I would say is if you’re in the mattress market, don’t overspend, but don’t underspend. We talked a little bit earlier about spending, you know, too much on a mattress. You don’t need to spend spend $4,000, $5,000, $6,000, $10,000 on a mattress. You just, you just don’t need to. With very few exceptions, a good quality mattress should be in that $1,500 to $2,000 range, up to— I would say the diminishing returns start at around $2,000, but by the time you’re spending $3,000, you’re getting kind of the best that can be sort of gotten, um, in the world of mattresses, in my view. Um, at the same time, spend a decent amount. Um, there is a difference between a $2,000 bed and a $300 bed, and it’s significant. So if you can get up to at least $1,000 I think that is where the better quality mattresses begin.

Derek Hales [00:56:32]:
The vast majority of choices below that are going to be substantially worse performers, lower quality, not last as long. Try and spend $1,000, but no, you don’t really spend more than $3,000 in the vast majority of cases.

Nick Urban [00:56:44]:
Okay. Do you review mattresses that are on either side of that recommendation as well? We do.

Derek Hales [00:56:49]:
We review everything. I’ve reviewed beds that are as cheap as, I think, $120, and then I’ve reviewed beds that are $10,000. We cover the full gamut so you can see exactly how the ultra expensive performs and how the, the ultra cheap performs.

Nick Urban [00:57:03]:
Perfect. Well, I will put the link to that finder, the mattress finder, and everything we’ve discussed in the show notes for this episode. Derek, thank you for joining the podcast. I’ve learned way more than I even knew there was to learn about mattresses today.

Derek Hales [00:57:15]:
Hey, it was absolutely my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me on as a guest. This was super fun.

Nick Urban [00:57:19]:
Likewise. Until next time, be an outlier. Thanks for tuning in to High Performance Longevity. If you got value today, the best way to support the show is to leave a review or share it with someone who’s ready to upgrade their healthspan. You can find all the episodes, show notes, and resources mentioned at outlier.com. Until next time, stay energized, stay bioharmonized, and be an outlier.