Windy Road to a Perfect Sleep Mattress

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The Mattress of Old

My journey to the perfect mattress started when I was 16 years old.

It was the year 1994, well before the war, when I moved from Ukraine to Russia to study in the top technical college: MIPT. Like MIT, or some say even better, but with cockroaches, mice and its share of the most soggiest beds and mattresses you can imagine. The “repressed memory” without any foam you may say.

It wasn’t me who set our old dorm on fire, but I can’t help but smile when I remember that day.

The Futons & Springs

Shortly after that, in early 2000, I moved to the states with a total of $260 dollars in my pockets. And the first $40 I spent on the firmest futon I could find on a yard sale and put it right on the floor. It was such an upgrade! Hard as a plank. The only downside, which I have found quite soon – not very girlified friendly (girlfriendly?)

So a few years later, when I got engaged and married, the futon was the first thing to leave the bedroom. Instead I’ve endowed a more traditional spring mattress and sleep setup. It wasn’t bad, just a bed. And it has served us well, until I’ve started to actually care about my sleep quality.

Why Sleep Matters

If you take a step away and look at the bigger picture, sleep is fundamental to everything in our life:

• Mood and Energy
• Creativity and Productivity
• Memory and Strength
• Health and Graceful Aging
  

Before you try to improve anything in your life, first you need to look at your sleep quality. And you might try to ignore it in your 20s and get by, but at some point you just realize that it’s better to work smart, not hard.

If you haven’t read Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker – I highly recommend you do so, or listen to Peter’s Attia The Drive episode on Sleep

Latex and Memory Foam Beds

With that in mind I went shopping… Memory foam mattresses were all the rage at the moment, but I wanted something even “bedder”. So I ended up with an organic multi-layered Talalay Latex mattress from SleepEZ . It was a serious upgrade. But something wasn’t quite right. Even with the wool topping, I would wake up sometimes all in sweat. But my wife was quite happy. Apparently I sleep ‘hot’ and she sleeps ‘cold’.

I wasn’t sure what to do. Definitely not ready to sleep in different beds, but not ready to sacrifice the deep restorative sleep either. Lucky for me at that time I was already entrenched in the longevity and anti-aging communities.
So when I’ve asked, everyone was like:
“Dude, where have you been, go get 8 Sleep Smart Mattress and your sleep won’t be the same. It will adjusts the temperature for you!”

Ultimate Sleeping Machine

Apparently all this time I was “sleeping” on the sleep technology. Which is quite ironic, because my water-cooling computer is using the same principles. I even use the same quiet Noctua fans. And that’s important, because I’ve also tried OOLER chiliPad and it was way too loud for my comfort (and it required two units for each side, if you have a partner)

Usually to improve deep sleep naturally and have better sleep in general, you have to work on it. Exercise, meditate, not eat before going to the bed, wind down etc. This is the very rare case, when you can outsource one critical aspect of a good sleep to a technology.

Today marks an anniversary. It has been 3 years since I have become a happy owner of Eight Sleep Mattress.
And What can I say… it is whisper quiet, sets different temperatures for me and my wife, and, what was unexpected, saves a lot on heating and cooling bills.
My Oura Ring, which I use to track sleep quality, has never been so happy.

And every night, when it texts me that the bed has been adjusted and is waiting for me, my heart skips a beat.

P.S
I’ve talked to Eight Sleep support and they have created SMARTMONKEY discount code, just for the readers of this blog.
Give it a try and let me know, if it worked!

I don’t understand why mattresses aren’t talked about more.
Seems like people are really sleeping on them.