SHAWN STEVENSON: Today, a growing number of people are breaking up. Now, I'm not talking about in the conventional sense, I'm talking about a sleep divorce. People are breaking up with their partners and some could say for good reason. When we get together with someone, we don't just get together with them. We also get together with their sleep representative, and people's waking personality can be very different from their sleep deprived personality. Now, if you're getting visions of severance bubbling up, there's good reason for that as well, because our sleep quality can have us acting dramatically different at the office or at home. In particular, there are numerous studies affirming how our sleep quality impacts our mental health and our disposition, our mood, how we're interacting with the world, and how we're interacting with each other.

And one of the most unsavory characteristics that gets amplified when we're sleep deprived is aggression. A meta-analysis of 74 studies published in the Journal of Sleep Medicine reviews determined that poor sleep quality was indicative of higher aggression. In over 80% of the studies, the scientists stated, "our findings confirm that poor sleep quality is consistently associated with higher aggression." Have you noticed for yourself or maybe for somebody that you're close to, maybe even your kids grandkids, when they're sleep deprived, when they're sleepy. They get a little "cranky", maybe a lot cranky. Now, we often attribute that to little kids, but in many ways we're big adult babies. We think that we've got our mental health and our mood on lock that we're totally in control of ourselves, but we have this inherent biology that when we are not meeting our needs, we tend to ramp up certain emotions, certain moods.

And sleep is such a powerful regulator of our ability to be calm, to be empathetic, to perspective take, to be more compassionate and thoughtful. The volume turns down on our compassion thermostat as we're more and more deprived of sleep. Now, what do we even mean by sleep deprived? Does that mean we're not getting the wildly general recommended amount of eight hours of sleep? Maybe we got a couple hours less of some sleep, and now we're just pissed off, man. But maybe, and as you're gonna learn today, many people are getting what they believe to be adequate amounts of sleep, but they're still sleep deprived. They're not going through their sleep cycles efficiently. They're not getting recovered, and thus they're going out into the world.

We are going out to the world not as our best selves, but as our more aggressive and irritable counterparts. Now for you, this might not show up as blatant aggression or irritation. This might show up as depression. This might show up as lackadaisical and fatigued and not passionate. Our sleep holds so much power over our lives, our sleeping life. Dramatically impacts our waking life. And so that's why I'm so excited about this episode because we're gonna be talking about all of this stuff. We're gonna talk about our sleep relationships and this sleep divorce paradigm that's taking place. We're gonna talk about how sleep impacts so many different aspects of our lives.

We're also gonna talk about how to dramatically improve our sleep by paying attention to the thing that matters more than anything else, our sleep and environment. Getting the environment right is the key to getting our sleep right. Now. Before we get to our special guest and dive into this important subject, there was something that he brought up that I want to bring to the forefront right now, which was, he mentioned throughout this powerful conversation, he mentioned the paradigm, the dramatically the skyrocketing new paradigm of taking prescription drugs and also over the counter drugs to, in many ways force our bodies into an unconscious state. Now that is definitely not necessarily going through your sleep cycles efficiently and actually getting recovered, and he's gonna talk more about that. But yes, there are so many different things that we can utilize in prescription form, over the counter supplements. There's so many things out there, but we wanna do our best to remove the cause of the need for those types of things. And also understanding that if we're talking about sleep and relationship to these compounds we're taking in, there are certain sleep related nutrients that help to build our hormones and neurotransmitters that really support our sleep quality.

So getting a wide variety of essential nutrients, essential amino acids, essential fatty acids like omega threes are impactful on our sleep quality. Vitamin C. Calcium, magnesium, the list goes on and on. We know that these nutrients are essential for our sleep quality, and if we do wanna look to something that has time-tested value when it comes to supplementation, but not forcing us into a pseudo sleep, but truly supporting our body to go through our sleep cycles efficiently and naturally. Then I'd highly encourage you to look no further than a recent study published in the Journal BMC microbiology, and it's ought to uncover why Rishi medicinal mushroom appears to improve sleep quality, even for individuals with insomnia, but without the well documented side effects seen with conventional sleep medications.

The study titled Expiration of the Anti Insomnia Mechanisms of Rishi looked at how Rishi impacts changes at the genetic level to bring about improved sleep quality. After their analysis, the researcher stated, "Rishi mainly affects target genes in the pineal body. Amygdala, nucleus, prefrontal cortex, cerebellum, and other regions which regulate rhythm related physiological processes". Rishi is supporting our brain and our nervous system to do what they're designed to do. They're not forcing us sleep. It's helping our body to establish true homeostasis. And as you may well know, Rishi has been utilized for thousands of years, and now we have all of this incredible science emerging on its effectiveness.

Our ancestors figure some stuff out long ago on its benefits, and there's only one organic dual extracted Rishi Elixir that I turn to. This is something I utilize on a regular basis as part of my evening routine. And this is the Rishi from Four Sigmatic. Go to foursigmatic.com/model. That's F-O-U-R-S-I-G-M-A-T-I C.com/model and check out their incredible Rishi Elixir. And also they have a wonderful Rishi Hot cocoa, which is really nice as well. And they've got a variety of dual extracted medicinal mushroom coffee blends to check out there as well. And in particular, my favorite is the Think Blend that has organic coffee. Chaga and Organic Lion's Mane as well. So many incredible things. You can get up to 50% off, depending on what you're looking for and their incredible subscriptions that they have available. Now you can get 10%, 15% up to 50% off, so head over there, check them out. foursigmatic.com/model. That's F-O-U-R-S-I-G-M-A-T-I-C.com/model. And now let's get to the Apple Podcast review of the week.

ITUNES REVIEW: Another five star review titled Game Changer by just a girl from New Jersey. My UK friend told me about this podcast in December of 2024, and I've listened ever since. This podcast has been a game changer for me. After trying everything, and I mean everything over the years. At 55, I'm the healthiest I've been in 30 plus years. My endocrinologist cannot believe the change she's seen in my numbers. After 20 years, Shawn and his guest give relevant and simple advice. This podcast has kept my head in the game when I usually was done by February each year. Thank you for changing my life. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Thank you. Wow. That is what it's really all about. Thank you so much for sharing your voice and sharing your story. I. It's truly an honor. I really do appreciate that. And listen, if you have to do so, please pop over to Apple Podcast and leave a review for the Model Health Show. Or if you're listening on Spotify, you can now leave a comment on each episode. You could rate the show there as well. Or of course, you could pop over to the YouTube channel. Hang out with us in the studio. Leave a comment from me there as well, really does mean a lot. And without further ado, let's get to our special guest and topic of the day. 

 Jack Dell'Accio is a certified sleep coach, who specializes in the impact that sleep has on disease recovery, prevention, longevity and performance. His expertise has led him to work with some of the world's top athletes, including those in the NBA, NFL, MLS and over 25% of active NHL hockey players utilize Jack's innovations in organic mattresses to optimize their recovery and their performance through better sleep. As the founder of Essentia, Jack has collaborated with many esteemed scientific organizations, including the Mayo Clinic.

His work led to a landmark double-blind study with professional athletes, which demonstrated by improving their sleep environment, they were able to radically improve their deep sleep and REM sleep as well. Let's dive into this conversation with the one and only Jack Dell'Accio. Jack, good to see you. 

JACK DELL’ACCIO: Great to see you. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Most people, when it comes to sleep, they're focused on the wrong thing. What should we really be focused on when it comes to sleep? 

JACK DELL’ACCIO: Well, for the longest time, everyone just talks about the fake numbers of seven to eight hours or seven to nine hours of sleep. Those are all mailing lists. Ultimately, what we obsess about over is REM sleep and deep sleep. Those are the game changers. That's what really moves the needle on recovery with needle on, on mental and physical wellness and recovery. So yeah, we work with athletes, for example. Not everyone's able to get those long hours of sleep. Some of them are, are just challenged to get five hours of sleep, just they're so revved up. But when we get them to be at three hours of combined REM and deep sleep doesn't make a difference if it's 5, 6, 7, or eight and that those are, those are, those are the metrics that count. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Awesome. Okay. Now, when you said REM sleep and deep sleep, so what's going on there? Why, why should we be more focused on that than just the total sleep hours. 

JACK DELL’ACCIO: So the total sleep hours, they're all needed obviously because it's a constant cycle that you're going from different phases of sleep, so you're not gonna get the deep sleep until you're at the light sleep cycles. But ultimately, those are the two different phases of sleep where your system is, there's slow wave cycles, so that's when your body's completely slowed down and is basically getting rid of all the toxins, clearing out the brain, healing the body cell recovery, really putting your stem cells in action and recovering the body so everything's, that's the body knows what to do, and that's when it's getting it done.

When it's outside of those phases, it's those cycles. It's basically only hoping to get back into those cycles to do more healing, and that's when it becomes very. Fragile is what we're doing in our room, in our sleep environment to stimulate and get you out of that. This is not what you wanna do. How do we preserve that time, extend that time as much as possible, and be really delicate with those light sleep cycles where you can just wake up and if you wake up, you may not be ready to go back to sleep again. So, so, so quickly. So the sleep environment plays a huge role in that, in not stimulating the body, not stimulating the central nervous system and allow us to really. Play longer in those two cycles that, that basically are, are life changing? 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yes. And we're gonna talk all about the sleep environment. It's a game changer in of itself when we become aware of this. And just to drill this point home, you know, and speaking about the, the players, professional athletes really being revved up. But they might be exhausted, right? So you can be unconscious, you can go to sleep. That doesn't mean you're gonna spend efficient time in rem sleep, in deep sleep and go through your sleep cycles efficiently, right? So there's a big difference between being unconscious correct. And really getting high quality sleep. 

JACK DELL’ACCIO: Best example of that is sleeping pills, narcotics, right? You take a sleeping pill. You're knocked out, you can be knocked out for eight hours, you're gonna wake up feeling horrible, feeling groggy 'cause those don't actually help you get into your deep sleep cycles. They just knock you out. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yep. We call that pseudo sleep. 

JACK DELL’ACCIO: Yep. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Right. And you know, that's a perfect example. And so often in our society, today especially, we are throwing ourselves into pseudo sleep. We're physiologically exhausted and we spend time, we might even spend a sufficient amount of time on the mattress, but we're not really getting recovered. You know, the real purpose of sleep is to heal and to recover and to feel good. And so yes. Obviously I, I like the analogy of like the sleep minutes and comparing it to calories, right? Like not all calories are created equal. That's right. We know that today they, they matter. Right. The time on the mattress matters, the sleep minutes matter, but it's the quality of those minutes.

JACK DELL’ACCIO: Absolutely. Yes. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: You know, I want to ask you about this because. You know, this is something that impacts all of us every single day, but we don't really think about it how our sleep. So you just mentioned a few things, even our stem cells, right. Healing and our cognitive performance, but our sleep quality deeply impacts our mood and our disposition, our mental health, how we feel, and how we relate with one another.

JACK DELL’ACCIO: Yep. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Let's talk about the connection with our sleep quality and our mood and our relationships. 

JACK DELL’ACCIO: Oh, man. Yeah, that, I mean, that's huge, right? That, that the, the elimination sleep helps you eliminate stress anxiety. Basically all that's happening in the, in the, in the mental recovery, the story, the, the storing of the days, whatever you've absorbed that day. If you're not, if you're, if you're not handling that properly overnight, basically you're just burdening the brain and exhausting the brain in the days to follow.

It completely affects your mood and your mood completely impacts your relationship with everyone, whether it be your partner at home or your coworkers or everyone you're gonna go about meeting that day. Then sleep is primarily helps you with your mental wellbeing. I, I would, I would say it, it, it, because that that's where enjoyment of life happens. Happiness and all your relationships are completely impacted by that. So it's incredible actually. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. And again, we don't think about this. We think we're just showing up in these relationships in these situations, but who's showing up? And I also talk about, you know, even if you're in a, in a relationship, for example, we don't usually realize this, but when you meet somebody and then you start "sleeping together". You meet that person's sleep associate? Or their sleep representative, right? 

JACK DELL’ACCIO: Yep. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: There's the conscious person and then there's their sleep version. As well, which can be a totally different person. So we'll talk more about this, but it's just understanding truly that we're not just showing up, you know, based on our decisions. We're showing up based on the quality of our sleep because it's affecting everything about us. All of our hormones and neurotransmitters, every cell in our body, our mitochondria, our brain, everything is being affected, and we wanna strive. If we want to have high quality relationships and show up as our best self, we really need to be mindful of our sleep because we have these, these things in our culture, like somebody being grumpy. You know, you can get a good night's sleep, so you're kind of grumpy. No, like literally this is happening all the time. 

JACK DELL’ACCIO: You also need to be respectful of your partner's sleep because when you wake up in the morning, you want them to be their best self as well, not to be cranky towards you and all that. So, so that awareness towards each other's sleep needs is healthy for both.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah, for sure. One thing that really comes to mind with sleep deprivation when it comes to our relationships and how we treat each other is that we know that there's a pretty notable increase in catecholamines and, you know, stress hormones. Cortisol is more elevated and dysregulated when we don't get high quality sleep. And so we just feel more irritable, agitated, and grumpy. And again, we are showing up like that and not realizing we're a little bit more sensitive or aggressive. And this can be pointing back to sleep. We can blame this on so many things in our society today. But so many things point back to our sleep quality.

JACK DELL’ACCIO: We, we tend to think that it's everything else around us. It's the, you know, we're very good at diagnosing what the circumstances are physically and mentally, so, so, you know, years back, hockey players that at play with and they just thought they were getting old. And that's why they had to tolerate certain shoulder pains, certain neck pains, until they realized they weren't sleeping right. And they had the proper support. Oh, it's not an age thing, it's a recovery thing. Same thing with mood, stress, anxiety, all that is not, you know, it's not always just that you had a bad day. It's most likely you had a bad night. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Right. Oh, so good. And by the way. If people haven't noticed the hockey reference and your accent. 

JACK DELL’ACCIO: Oh, okay. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. We have a Canadian who is also a newly American as of this week. 

JACK DELL’ACCIO: That's right. Yes. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: So congratulations. 

JACK DELL’ACCIO: Thank you on that. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: That's amazing. 

JACK DELL’ACCIO: We very excited. The whole family is, we're really proud to, to be here. It's, yeah, it's been 11 years over here, became citizens this week. We're excited about that, but we're never letting go our, our hockey roots, that's for sure.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Oh, right, right. That's what we were talking about before the show. A lot of hockey talk, you know? I'm from St. Louis, so we had the blues and I worked at the blues, hockey stadium when I was a kid, and so yeah, it's really, really amazing. But, you know, this is the power. You are one of the most, before I even met you, I was just, I was kind of astonished at how powerful you are, like as far as like a manifester and just the people that you are around, and I, I think you, of course you know this, but to have somebody point it out, even the fact that you grew up. With this deep hockey culture, and now you're impacting the lives of so many elite hockey players with the work that you're doing. It's like, that's not an accident like you are a very powerful manifester. 

JACK DELL’ACCIO: It's kind of, kind of, I, I was shocked when it really first started to happen. It didn't happen from day one when I started with developing the product, researching the product. It didn't even happen day one that I had ascension. It happened maybe six years after the company. As I continued to develop and, and focus on REM sleep and deep sleep and how to achieve this, they came to me. So it was just kind of wild. I, I can remember, I guess it's 2015 or 16 now, time's flying by pretty quick.

I was consulting with the hockey team and, and, and just about their sleep needs and their, how to overcome some of the travel and their sleep environment with their training staff. And at the end of that year. And I was just having so much fun consulting with these guys, which I enjoyed it. At the end of that year, they made it to the Stanley Cup finals and I get the call before game five that, you know, they wanted to invite me to the game and I'm there in the owner's booth watching a hockey game.

Just getting ready, you know, I never really felt like a child in most of these circumstances because they're all, all the players are younger than me. So, so it was great. But that day that realizing that I may be celebrating with these guys 'cause I was invited to the post championship party and all that. I go, wow, okay, this is, this is real. I'm actually, this is supposed to be work, but I'm enjoying every minute of this 'cause as a child, always enjoying hockey. Still today, I play hockey a few times a week and, and, uh, don't have any plans to stop anytime soon.

SHAWN STEVENSON: I love that. I love that so much. That's, that's magical. And also by the way, you're impacting the lives of pretty much every professional sport, elite players with what we're gonna talk about in just a moment, helping them to optimize their sleep environment and their sleep quality. And before we get into that though, we need to again lean into this subject matter a little bit more. It's one of the reasons I want to have you here is to talk about this because it's not talked about enough. What are some of the common issues that couples face when it comes to sleep and sleeping together? 

JACK DELL’ACCIO: A lot of times it's a scheduling thing, whether it be the routines, not everyone's fully committed to sleep or understanding sleep. So it'll be some of the leisure activities that may not be considered to your partner. So maybe most often is a television set. They'll, they're, they're actually watching tv. One partner needs tv, feels that they need to be distracted. The other one is getting distracted instead of falling asleep. So it's where.

There's a misalignment of the needs and goals. You know, a person doesn't need TV to get distracted, but they feel they need TV to get distracted. Well, so oftentimes it's, it's a preparedness and scheduling. I mean, I, I, I don't wanna make it all about hockey, but as an older player, I'll play later games. So when I come back from playing a hockey game, maybe midnight, and so it's off schedule from when I should be winding down.

So I'm not gonna go straight into the bedroom if I need to get some distraction. I'll watch some television. I'll wind down, I'll put on my blue light blocking glasses and really try to. Expedite my wind down period and I'll go into the bedroom and not disrupt my wife who's already asleep. But if I were to go in there and turn on a television set and try to wind down at that point, I'm not being respectful of her needs. So, so oftentimes it's just not a, but people don't think about sleep, right? So it's not intentional. This is, no one's going in into the bedroom with the intention of interrupting someone else's sleep. They're just not realizing how important the sleep environment is and how to be aware of the importance of it. Right. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: That's the first awareness is the first domino. 

JACK DELL’ACCIO: Yep. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Right. And of course, I faced this early on with, with my wife, you know, and I was just already, I was working at the university gym that we both were going to school. That's where we met at, at the university. And you know, I had my routines, you know, I was getting up in the morning, but you know, of course I was still in college, so I'd stay up late from time to time. But you know, there were times when she started like staying over and hanging out more. Of course, like she'd stay up. And I'd go to bed. Right. And also, you know, I'd get up in the morning and, you know, I had my two kids and they'd be like, is she, it'd be like 10:00 AM, and she'd be like, is she gonna wake up? You know what I mean? Because we're up, we done had breakfast, we done played, or, you know, played some video games, went outside, whatever.

And her routine was so different, right? And it's not about good or bad, it's just about different. And so it just over time as we start to optimize our life together and prioritizing, like, okay, so for example, you know, you staying up later and then you gotta get up for class, or we gotta do this thing in the morning, we got kids to drop off. How do you feel if you're not going to bed around when I'm going to bed? You know? That's right. And just like acknowledging like I don't feel good. And so we, we, what we did was kind of. It's not negotiate per se, but we found a compromise. Right. So instead of me, which I might have went to go to bed at 10, 10:00 PM you know, we'll go to bed at 11, but we'll go to bed together.

That's like, that's right. Like, I'll stay up a little bit later. You go to bed a little bit earlier and you know, still to this day though, my, my lady, if I'm around, she, she doesn't want to get up. You know, and she, if she, but if she happens to stay somewhere else Right. She's traveling, she's, you know, at a hotel or even, you know, if I go to bed early and she's staying up for some reason now, like she'll pop in the guest room. And go to sleep. 'cause she could sleep anywhere, anytime. Yeah. Right. Whereas me, I'm much more regimented and I'm, you know, a little bit more Aw. Like, not, not necessarily a light sleeper, but I'm much more aware, like she could be knocked out because she has confidence I'm around. And so. In the mornings when she's with me, I gotta come over, babe.

It's time to wake up. Or you gotta get up even to, we've been together for 20 years. And she's like a little kid about this, you know? So again, you meet somebody's sleep associate or sleep representative. And I want to talk now about this new phenomenon because it's not just the getting to bed part, it's the in the bed part, where people might have some conflicts. Let's talk a little bit about that. 

JACK DELL’ACCIO: Well, yeah, it, it, it, it really is just getting that, again, awareness and, and sinking what, what those needs are. Whether it be sleep position, from sheets to no sheets, to pajamas, to no pajamas to intimacy and no intimacy. Like, it's kind of weird because you want these things just to be naturally occurring and not such a planned type of relationship. But it. It kind of, not it, for not everyone. It, it doesn't always happen that way. I, I think I've been fortunate in my relationship that everything kind of sinks together. We, we, we, we, we sink in together five days a week, two days a week that I play hockey. She's actually aware of that and she does everything to accommodate that.

I may need the extra hour in the morning. She's got the kids. But then as far as in the bedroom together at that time, is really trying to have common goals, common ideas, mutual agreement of everything that you're gonna have around your sleeps, actuary, and how you're gonna go about it. But solutions for some people have been to completely separate that, you know, 23% of all couples sleep in separate beds because they aren't able to find that commonality, that common coexistence for proper sleep in the same bed.

And a smaller percentage also have three rooms. You know, a room each for sleep and one room for intimacy. So where people can't compartmentalize or need to compartmentalize it completely. I don't think that, you know, that everyone's got what they need to figure out what the best way is because they know that if they're waking up, well, their relationship is better. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Right yeah. 

JACK DELL’ACCIO: But there is ways, I, I believe that you find ways to make this all within the common space in a common bed is definitely, definitely achievable by, by almost all. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah, I'm seeing this now. There's rising rates of what people are calling sleep, divorce. 

JACK DELL’ACCIO: Yes. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: So let's talk about that a little bit more.

JACK DELL’ACCIO: Yes, it, I mean, I have surprised that it's such a, a big number, but the sleep divorce is, is, is real. We have customers who've, who've got, you know, even in some coaching. Initially there's a little bit of a hesitation for the sleep, divorce 'cause they feel that they failed at their relationship, but they, they really haven't. Sometimes it's a scheduling thing if people, it's not everyone works in sync as far as hours. If you're on a night shift, day shift, evening shift, again habits, a lot of them are just because of habits and some people work in those late hours or watch tv. So it's about never really managing to merge those schedules together to be in sync.

SHAWN STEVENSON: What about during the sleep itself? What about snoring and things like that? 

JACK DELL’ACCIO: There are solutions as well. I. You know, some elevated sleep. So a lot of people who have come to me for snoring instead of like immediately having that sleep divorce. We just looked at some, you know, in, in, in so many cases we resolved that just by elevating and sloping the bed just slightly, puts less pressure on the chest, opens up the breathing facility and you don't notice that you're at an angle anyhow. That's what people don't realize is that if you raise your headboard by, by four inches, that four inch slope, you don't notice that it's happening, so you still feel that you're horizontal, but it's making it healthier, breathing easier. We did this a lot with, with players that had, were on a concussion protocol. We wanted to make sure it was not too much pressure going on at the cranium, but it works, it helps for snoring a great deal. So there, there's, there's always about what are the solutions that we have in front of us? What can we try, what do we need to do? The wrong approach is going with a sleep bill that doesn't stop snoring. But ultimately, what is it in your, your sleeping system that we can tweak and adjust that makes sense, to make it happen. I'm not saying that the sleep divorce is, is a problem. It's, it is not. But again, if you want to be together, let's exhaust every solution of, of making it work. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. I love this. You know, I think that it's important for us to not. Put ourselves into a box of like, this is how it has to be. That's right. Yeah. You know, and every relationship is unique and human. We're all unique anyways. And so part of it can be what if your relationship can radically improve potentially by not sleeping in the same bed? You know, that might be the case. And for some people, again, you just said it, they might feel like they failed according to who, you know. 

JACK DELL’ACCIO: That's right. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: But there's also something to be said for the proximity and the closeness and all these, these things. We can account for that too. Maybe you're more, more intimate during the day. You know, maybe you're closer and you spend time on the couch together, or walking and holding hands and all these things to get that connection. But you know, our sleep quality is so important. That's why I think this is an emerging trend. But you're here to say also, it doesn't have to be that way if you don't want it to be that way. There are solutions, but let's not be too hard on ourselves because we could even reframe, we don't gotta call it a sleep divorce. We can call it maybe a, a sleep me time. Right? This is my time. 

JACK DELL’ACCIO: I can recall, Five years ago, I travel a whole lot, so I get. Plenty of me time in a hotel room where I'm on my own. So when I'm back home, I'm looking to be with my wife as much as possible. I enjoy the pre sleep rituals together, you know, so I enjoy waking up. So to me, it's an important part of what we are. But five years ago during the whole covid thing that was going on, well, I had covid, so immediately I got, well, I've gotta sleep in my own room, in the house. So, so I was in another room and I was there for three, four nights. It was just kind of interesting because it was like, oh, well this was a little break, a little quiet, my own space. 

No one's coming to see me. I'm getting food. I'm, I'm kind of hanging out. But then I was, that was it, you know, it was great, great sleep. But I was ready to go back. I was ready to go back to, to my routine and, and pres sleep routine and, and waking up in the morning. So it, it's just figuring out how to make it work and making sure that you're getting the right sleep, because if, if, obviously your relationship's not gonna improve if you're together not sleeping well.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Mm. So true. So true. This is a good point for us to talk about sleeping well and talk about that sleep sanctuary, our sleep environment. Why this is so important? What are some of the most alarming things that is in the common bedroom that most people have no idea about that's harming their sleep? Let's talk about it.

JACK DELL’ACCIO: Well, it goes to the very beginnings of why I started this, but the number one. An item in your household that emits the most toxins is the mattress. So why do I say that? That's the number one thing is because that's what's stimulating our central nervous system and pulling you out of REM sleep, in deep sleep, keeping those windows shorter, and keeping your wake and light sleep cycles longer. So that's probably the number one problem in a room. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: What is it about the mattress? 

JACK DELL’ACCIO:  So the, basically they're all petrochemical laced. The foams are made outta polyurethane, which are constantly off gassing. The fire barriers are chemical based and they're, they're off gassing as well today because sleeping hot is not healthy. Instead of going with natural technologies, the most common one are phase changing chemicals that basically react to your body heat. Upon contact there's a chemical reaction that makes them feel cool, but that's another chemical reaction. It's constantly offgassing in the room. So you've got three major sources of chemicals that are off gassing from the mattress, which is kind of insane when you think about it.

That's nuts. That, that we're consciously doing this, right? That's what people don't see and fully don't grasp is how critical that. Piece of it. But then there's the obvious ones light. So many people don't create this sleep sanctuary where they're not getting stimulated. So whether it be a television set, the wrong type of synthetic lighting, not bringing that down, not toning it down, not just when it's time to sleep. Because if you, you just shut the lights when it's time to sleep well, now you need that wind down period where, where that stimulation has to go away. So trying to set that environment up one or two hours beforehand. So when you're in the room, even as you're getting changed, you're not getting stimulated by the wrong type of lights and the wrong type of, you know, TV that's streaming and all that.

So, the sleep environment is, is light, is sound, is toxins. Those are the real critical parts or part of the bedroom. Now people say temperature, you hear a lot about sleeping cool, but all of our research indicates that it's not just about being in a cold environment, it's the drop in temperature that happens consistently through the night, that makes a big difference in REM sleep or deep sleep. But what I mean by that is if you're on a cold room on a, on a plastic mattress, you're just gonna sweat 'cause, 'cause that's causing your body heat to be trapped. And the cold of the room is, is expelling that heat, but it's getting trapped at a surface. So you're, you're basically swimming in that environment.

So it's not gonna be, and, and you'll go into from hot to cold, hot to cold constantly. But if your body heat is basically allowed to expel its heat gradually through the night and it's in a constant drop in temperature, that is signaling the brain central nervous system to constantly be on a slow pattern. And that keeps you in into those. Deep sleep and rem sleep cycles longer. Those are game changers. Again, like I said, if we focus on eliminating stimulants, we extend our healthy sleep and recovery. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. That's so powerful. We evolved humans, evolved in association, close proximity to the natural environment. And there's no matter where you are on earth, when the sun goes down, the temperature goes down and we can artificially keep it warmer, right? So being able to have our body, our core body temperature and you know, our skin temperature as well, but just to drop a little bit through the night, it's right in alignment with certain neurotransmitters getting released, enzymes, things that help to repair us and heal us. But if we are artificially keeping our temperature up, we're not unlocking the ability for us to really recover. That's right. Yeah. So you also mentioned light and light pollution, right? It's getting this, this term light pollution. And we know we'll put a study up for everybody watching the YouTube version of these lights that are being emitted from our phones. Most people, they're, last thing they do is they stare into their phone before they go to bed. 

JACK DELL’ACCIO: That's right. Yep. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Televisions, all this stuff, it suppresses melatonin. We know this. And going all the way back to the beginning of this conversation, when you were pointed to time spent in deep sleep and REM sleep, that's what we need to be paying attention to. Your melatonin being suppressed, you're not gonna get into those stages of sleep and stay there and get that efficient sleep cycle flow. Basically to be able to transition in and outta your sleep cycles efficiently. And so we're just sabotaging ourselves. So removing the light pollution, make sure the room is nice and dark and cool, but it's not just the environment, it's the mattress itself. And this circles back to what you said. Again, this is the number one toxin exposure. We spend so much time there, the offgassing, but there's another thing that most people do not know about, which is the electromagnetic fields. 

JACK DELL’ACCIO: I, I didn't know you were gonna mention that, and I was going to jump in and say one thing we're forgetting about that comes with that cell phone that comes with a tablet computer that comes with streaming Netflix or whatever shows your streaming. And it, it's very different than what it was at one, at one point it was electronic devices, so grounding was the way to go. But today that, that energy is coming from everywhere and it's going back, I guess about 10 years ago when we started studying this and trying to uncover what the impacts of EMFs were.

And working with a, a doctor out in Switzerland, we realized he was able to show the, the relationship between active streaming and your blood flow and. All of this energy comes in in a very erratic method. It signals don't come in a linear wave or very, very organic wave. They come from every single direction, from every different device, from every different satellite, every different antenna, and it's very erratic. And our bodies were not made to handle this and you see it in through dark field microscopy. We're able to identify this in how the blood cells would kind of cluster together looking like worms. And the hypothesis there is that oxygen is not able to flow as properly through, and you, we know we need, we need oxygen for repair.

And as soon as these devices are turned off, the blood flow normalizes. But it takes a while to normalize. We were testing on a phone call. The erratic behavior immediately started, and it was a 30 second call. It took about 30 minutes for the blood cells to normalize again. So, so there is something happening there. Just like toxins are invisible, EMFs are just as invisible. And one is, we know it has negative impacts on the behavior of our, our blood cells. And this is something that at Essentia, when I, when I develop something, it's always about moving forward. I didn't go with an organic material that was a primitive version of an organic material.

It had to be surpassing modern technologies in support and pressure redistribution in blood circulation. So that's what I developed and that's what I invented with the essential material, was the first pressure, redistributing, dense, supportive material to be used so that we, we went to the next level where we now have an organic material that performs better than a synthetic material. When it came to EMFs, the solutions in, in the, in our wellness camps were, well just block it out and not, not allow. But you know, again, dealing with a lot of pro athletes that are very young and their, their communication with their families are all through their technology. Some of these kids have been away from home in the ages of 15, and you know that those nightly check-ins with their parents, those nightly check-ins with with friends, social media is really important to them because that's how they're remaining with their communities from back home. Telling any of these guys at 18 years old, 20 years old, keep your cell phone out of your bedroom.

It's not a winning discussion we're gonna really be effective on. So to me back then was what's the workaround? How do we embrace technology and, and not be harmful to our own health? And it took us years to do it, but we actually developed a new quartz and form quartz formula in our latex. So basically that's one of the things we're so known for, is that we address everything in our bed. We don't, it's not just one, we're not just a hero of one specific feature. It's everything. It's from toxins to addressing thermal regulation and, and body heat and EMFs. So what we had able to determine with our work in in Europe was that if we can create a low wave signal that was organic, that was mimicking the body's natural harmony, that would be the dominant wave in, in our space. 

So we did this through Quartz, which is a very powerful mineral that, that is, is able to memorize a pattern and make it its natural pattern. So when we did this with Quartz, what was interesting is phone calls streaming, all signals can come in, but those signals don't need to be erratic to get to your device so they can follow an organic flow and not disrupt our bodies and still be effective. So that's what, in fact, what we did at Essentia was create a dominant wave, which was a reflection of a human proper wave and allowed these athletes to keep using their, their devices and not have any impact on their blood cells. And in fact, we have this on our website. We have all the results of these tests where you can see that your blood cells are actually more optimized and flowing better on an EM F protected essentia mattress.

Even if you're not on a phone call and during phone calls or during streaming, your blood cell behavior is actually better than on a mattress with no devices, you're still healthier on the Essentia EMF protected formula, which is amazing actually because, I mean, those waves are around us everywhere. So just because your device is not in your bedroom, it's in our communities. It, you have to get so far detached from civilization in order to really be away from it. The answer really was how do we, oh, how do we overcome it? How do we become dominant to that wave rather than it dominating us? 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. You know, this is the thing. What you're sharing can be paradigm shifting for some people like quartz, like how, how is that dealing with all these EMFs and things like that? But you've got the data to back it up. And in fact, you guys did. A phenomenal double-blind sleep study and publish the results. And you can see, like you mentioned, a lot of this stuff on the website is right there for everybody to, to check out the study. Can you talk about that study in particular?

JACK DELL’ACCIO: Sure. Well, first of all, I guess with us, anytime we're coming up with a solution, we're not just dealing with a, an organic community that is looking to us. We work with institution. We've been vetted by some of the largest national institutions. Like we've worked with Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic, Johns Hopkins has reviewed our product. We work with professional sports teams and they want everything evidence-based. They're not looking for this may do this or it may do that. No. What are the facts? We've done some work with the military and you know, everything there has gotta be completely fact driven and nothing is, is hypothesized. 

So ultimately when we were working with the sports teams, we wanted to show them, Hey, this is, this is real. So we, we, we did a double blind study for 10 weeks. We evaluated 75 players and really we're looking to see how their REM sleep and deep sleep was reacted. In the environment of Essentia that was ultimately protecting them from their EMF, had proper thermal regulation, and basically, proper posture support, everything that Essentia had to offer. Well, we got them all on that. And what's amazing is you're talking about professional athletes who already go into this, the state of mind, I need to sleep well, I need to recover well. So it's a very aware and conscious group. And we were able to, in, I, I improve in this study, we prove in this study that any, they all went from 20% to 60% increase in REM sleep and deep sleep.

Those are huge numbers. So huge numbers just by the elimination of EMF, the proper thermal regulation. And number one, the elimination of toxins and allergens that come out of most mattresses. The numbers were, were incredible because don't forget the alternative of what they were sleeping on is what they were spending a lot of money on, top performing mattresses that were out there, but they were all synthetic. None of them were handling thermal regulation properly and dynamically throughout the night. None of them addressed EMFs. So all of these stimulants that I've been talking about for years, how that's accelerating your central nervous system, disrupting your sleep, even if you're not consciously aware of it.

You wake up stressed, anxious, and players. They seem calm and in control, but they've got a lot of stress and anxiety to perform game day every single day. So when we were able to see one is the true test that we were looking for, which was REM sleep and deep sleep, which to me are real, the real indicators of how well you're recovering, but also in the questionnaires that they were being asked where they were more confident or calm, not stressed, pregame, all those things just come from good sleep. And it affects, not only can relate to that as whether you're a company executive, whether you're just a parent, how you're dealing with your situations. Wouldn't it be nicer to know that when a problem comes to you, you can be levelheaded, relaxed and all right, deal with it. That comes with good mental recovery that happens at night.

So this double blind study was incredible for us just because it. We didn't need it for the players. The players felt better on our product, so they were happy to be user of our product, but when we gave them the numbers of how much better they did, uh, it just brought a smile to all their faces. They all had a smirk. Wow. Yeah. That's, that's pretty cool. You know, because it's, when I started this company that was mainly dealing with people who had terminal I illnesses and were trying desperately to recover, and you learn a lot from people who are really sick because they end up basically overreacting to almost everything in their environment.

On the flip side is when they deal with pro athletes, one, it's not as stressful just because they're not in a terminal situation, but to the, that's the, the similarity of the two groups is they're very aware of their bodies. They know when something's not right, not right. So, so in fact, i, I was able to learn so much from pro athletes for years and years as they were using our product. And I was getting the feedback, what's working, what's not working? Are you sensing a difference? So while I was coaching them on their sleep, they were coaching me on what's working, what's not working. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: That's so powerful. Yeah. So powerful. And to be able to help such a, because sleep impacts all of us. 

JACK DELL’ACCIO: Yeah.

S: You know, such a wide spectrum and addressing, checking every box. And this is what it really was for me, because like I mentioned, your name was floating around. Somebody sat in that chair where you're sitting right now, who I respect, who's, I'm not gonna say neurotic, but I use that loosely about their wellness. And they told me about you. And, you know, this was a couple years ago. They just kind of like, that's interesting. You know, I've, I literally wrote the book. On sleep. You know, this has been about a decade now. Sleep Smarter is the first sleep wellness book to become a national bestseller, international bestseller.

And I was really checking a lot of boxes with the mattress that I was sleeping on already. So I was like, you know, okay, that's cool. But then somebody really close to me, Jim Quick. My friend, who I could even point back to sleep smarter part of it in, in being able to impact the world the way that it did, had to do with him and connections that he made for me. And so when he mentioned it, I was like, okay, let me look, let me look at the data. Let me actually look at the data. And I was just blown away. I was like, I didn't, I wasn't checking this box right here. And so this whole year, pretty much almost since the beginning of the year, I've been sleeping on an ascension mattress and I, oh! Had I known, had I known, you know. 

JACK DELL’ACCIO: Should have been in your book. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: I listen, we, we got some stuff we're working on, you know, but, you know, 10 years ago, and I didn't share this with you, but now I can, I'm just gonna drop the names, but like, one of the top people is a vice president at one of the biggest furniture companies in the U.S. Ashley Furniture reached out, they wanted to collaborate with me. And, you know, get books, thousands of books, like for their retailers, their, their, their sales force and things like that. And I'm just thinking when he's, you know, talking with me, I'm just like, he must not have read the chapter I wrote about mattresses' cause he's like, I basically, the, the, what you guys are carrying is hurting people. You know, hurting people, sleep and their health overall. And so eventually, of course I mentioned, I was like, Hey, did you check chapter, you know, whatever the, whatever it was. And, you know, our, our conversation, you know, stalled from there exactly.

But. Because of that, you know, I was more adamant, but there's always a good, better, best, and you are definitely operating in the realm of the best. And if everybody, if you're like, where can I get my hands on an ascension mattress? Go to myessentia.com/model right now. You were gracious enough to hook everybody up with a special money off discount, but there's also all kinds of cool stuff that's usually going on. Not usually but infrequently if you're paying attention, like different sales and things like that. So head over there, take advantage. That's my essentia.com/model. That's M-Y-E-S-S-E-N-T-I-A, my essentia.com/model. You're gonna get hooked up with a special discount exclusive with us here at the Model Health Show.

And I want to ask you a little bit more about this because it's such a special product. The thing that really, I'm not gonna say the thing, but one of the things that really got me to like, I, I gotta sleep on this mattress and see what it's about. We talked about this, and I don't think a lot of people talk to you about this very often, but the springs. General mattresses is one of the things that just comes, it's a part, it's part and parcel for the, the mattress, the mattress industry. Let's talk a little bit about the spring situation. 

JACK DELL’ACCIO: Yeah. We are, we are, we're completely a no spring mattress, so we don't believe in them. I mean, it's, the springs are a commodity product. It's a least expensive component, so it makes sense that that would be the most economical mattresses always have springs. So those coils, number one, is the main reason that we don't like them is all these EMFs and that we, we talk about these form as antennas for them, so they're attracting more of them in more of a cone behavior.

So it's kind of creating a different. Erratic movement of EMFs going towards the bed. So that's on one hand, a little bit more out there was as a non-visual part of it, but also it's, it's the part that breaks down the quickest. And so, you know, people replace their mattresses typically after seven years because it's, but it's actually started to fail them after the first year, second year by by year three. There's no real support left in it. And that's usually the spring coil unit that's breaking down first. If you can imagine if you had a, a metal piece, if everyone's ever bent a piece of metal the first time is the toughest time to repeat. The bend is so easy after that. That's what's really happening with a coil.

Every time you're compressing on it, it gets weaker and weaker and weaker within a year. It's no longer giving you the spinal support that you needed, eventually starts hammocking. So it, it's the real fail point of every conventional mattress. And, and if you look at organic mattresses, what people don't realize about our, not all organic mattresses are high quality mattresses. The entry level organic mattresses are, are a replica of entry level synthetic mattresses. They have the coil system and then they'll have better materials at the surface to eliminate any toxic off gassing. But the coils are really something that if you can avoid it, I'd go without it. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yep. And that was the thing for me. I had all these non-toxic boxes checked with my former mattress, but I had the springs. What I noticed the first night after getting up, and I've, I haven't shared this with you, the first night of getting up after sleeping on my as essentia, I just felt better. I, I felt, but the thing is, you don't know until you don't know what you don't know. So I thought, I felt kind, you know, I felt good, you know, but I felt like my body, I felt like ready to go like I felt like I. I can go and immediately run or train. 

JACK DELL’ACCIO: Energy level goes up. You've recovered, you've recovered that much more, that much better. It kind of reminds me of the reaction from Jim as well 'cause it was funny 'cause I, you know, I've met Jim several times over the years and spoke to him about what I did and such a quiet man sort an amazing person. But he, he didn't, he didn't engage with the product eventually because everyone, everyone gravitates towards Jim. You know, he's, he's that personality. And one day, I guess it's been about two or three years now, he just came up to me and, and we had our usual catch up talk. And, and he goes, you know what? I'd like to purchase the mattresses. All right. So, so it was great. And he got the mattresses, and then I get a phone call from him just four months later, I want you on my, I want you on my podcast. I want to talk about this. So, which is kind of cool. And same with you, which is obviously to me, that's what I love. I love that the product is speaking for itself. Yeah. And I just get to come here and meet great people and hang out. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah, man. And you know, for me, I'm, I'm gonna tell you the energy. Yes. But it's more just physic, my body felt better. My body felt better. I didn't feel like I gotta warm up, you know, my shoulder or whatever, you know, just. The mattress was more supportive, ironically, like, because I'm thinking, and I know the public consciousness is like the springs, it's, they got the mega spring support or whatever. But just the way that it was holding me at night, it just like, I felt like my body just, it didn't go through something at night. Right. 

JACK DELL’ACCIO: It's, it's amazing that when, when it comes to the Springs are very well marketed. In fact, the conventional stores have you believe, because I think the, the word they use is hybrid. The most demanded mattress in the industry right now is called a hybrid mattress, which you're using memory foams on top, which are high performing foams, and they're using springs on the bottom. They came up with this when they realized that the springs were losing popularity and then where the polyurethane chemical phones were going up in price. So what they did is they swapped and they, they came up with the word hybrid, which is, I guess, popular in vehicle. So it was, it was a good word to use, but ultimately hybrid was a downgrade of a supportive mattress from an all foam to a spring base with high quality foams on top.

All of them are Xed off my list because the high quality foams that they're using are all toxic. And so, so neither one of them is good, but for them to kind of market that a hybrid foam using springs was a superior model was, was incredible. When you see, just see how things get marketed out there. What's really amazing is that you, you picked off on the support part. Which is, again, when you touch my mattresses, you'll, you'll see they kind of feel a little softer than most. They don't come out, they're not hard. I call it like my pizza dough recipe. It feels soft because it's perfect for pressure redistribution, blood circulation, but it's extremely dense.

We have two to three times the density of, of most foam that are out there. So having that high density really supports your back. Your shoulders eliminates all of that negative space. So while you touch it, it feels soft. When you're horizontal on it, there's a lot of support that's there and that's part of it. Part of it, it's not just the toxins, it's all together. We're like, when we say checking off every box, we've got the physical support, posture support, blood circulation support, non-toxic. You've got the EMF barriers. You've got all that, if any one of those will be good for you, put 'em together and it's powerful change that's happening in your sleep.

SHAWN STEVENSON: So you mentioned earlier a little bit about your latex formula and the quartz. And what's different about the latex that Essentia uses versus the, the memory foam and all this other stuff that's out there in the marketplace. 

JACK DELL’ACCIO: So for us, it, it's certified organic latex. This is tapped from a tree and basically it's tapped from a tree, which is natural rubber before we imitated rubber, you know, to a synthetic rubber, the original rubber was tapped from a tree. And so when that's harvested and then lathered and foamed up and then basically, cooked into, baked into becoming a solid. So that process, that's the natural alternative to foams. Then the natural alternative to memory foam is what we've developed, which is through the use of essential oils and our formulation.

We've been able to change how that foam behaves. So it behaves in a slow response so that when you put your body weight on it, it's not pushing back against you. So by not pushing back against you, it's not giving you pressure points, it's molding to your body, filling those cavities fully supportive. And then again, another thing where we kind of change the rules on that is if you change position, it reaps and restores itself within seconds. So it's not creating these hammocks, it's not heat activated. I can, I can kind of go on and on. But what The main difference that's affecting your REM sleep in deep sleep is we're not triggering you with toxins. So it's an organic material. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Amazing. Amazing. So just to highlight a little bit of what you're talking about, and of course you and your team have done some amazing research on this, but there are several studies pointed to what you're sharing and why this matters. And in fact, one of these studies was published in the Journal Environmental Health in 2020, and it's titled, the Use of a Bed with an Insulating System of electromagnetic Fields improves immune function, redox, inflammatory states, and decreases the rate of aging. Alright. And they're looking at just insulating you while you're on your mattress from these electromagnetic fields that are in fact impacting human health. We're swimming around with this stuff. We're toying with all these different frequencies, and our bodies are inherently affected by this stuff. As you just mentioned, our blood and it coagulating, abnormally, and, you know, not just that, but our brains, every cell in our body's being affected.

And so, having our bed truly being a sanctuary, a place where our body can get restored, a protection from all this electromagnetic chaos that we're just tinkering with. More data's coming out on the impacts on human health, of course. But this is something that is easily getting suppressed again and again because it's so pervasive and so many companies are involved with it now. Now with that said, I, I like. I like living in this time, you know, because we have access to all these really cool things, but we've gotta understand that everything has a cost. And so literally having the ability to insulate ourselves while sleeping and getting what we're doing with, with Essentia is we're just stacking conditions. We're stacking conditions for recovery for healing, for protecting our bodies and giving our bodies a break from all that electromagnetic noise. 

JACK DELL’ACCIO: I love the way stacking, that's the, the best word. I'm gonna steal that, but I think you're right that, that that's exactly it. And, and I mean, right now, more than ever, this is a good time because more information is being shared publicly than ever before. While there's a lot of attempted suppression. This is probably the greatest time for awareness. And when we talk about cell repair and inflammation, our bodies run on current. Our cells repair through the proper flow, not erratic or improper flow. Through the proper flow of energy, our cells realign themselves.

Inflammation is reduced. Longevity is is a reality. We're learning more and more about this, every year. And so that's where I'm proud that I'm on the right part of history here of where we're going with things. And, I'm confident that ascension and what we've put together there is just a great healing tool, one of the tools that someone can go for. But I just feel it's, I've put my focus on this the last 20 years. 'cause I feel it's probably one of the most important places to really heal people is through sleep. That's what our bodies were designed to do. They were designed to heal through sleep. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: What got you into this? Because being interested in mattresses is pretty unique.

JACK DELL’ACCIO: Yeah. It doesn't sound very exciting. Actually. It goes back about 25 years ago. Uh, my father was diagnosed with cancer. And, uh, so it was my aunt, both of them kind of similarly in a timeframe. And that's kind of like most people, that's the first time you really start looking at wellness. You first start looking at solutions, treatments, and then by nature is, okay, well shelter the environment, the household environment, what's hurting, what's helping, what, you know, so, so you go from nutrition, you go from treatments, and you go to your home environment to put all conditions favorable in order to extend life, to heal and to repair. 

So while we were exploring this as a family, I've always had an entrepreneurial edge and I had another business which had nothing to do with this, but was going well, but I became a little more obsessed. It kind of become obsessive and with things. And, as I started to learn about what was wrong in the, in the home environment, what was specifically wrong in the sleep environment, then I started analyzing how can we make that work? Just because in, in the problem with the organic products of the day is they were triggering patients with allergens and they weren't very well physically supportive. 

Somebody who was going through chemo, going through a lot of physical pain and the organic products were not giving them the physical support they needed to manage that pain. The, the synthetic product products were triggering, rashes, hives, respiratory issues. So there was not really a product that was supporting those people in those situations. So I just asked myself, well, why, why don't these coexist? Why, why does latex foam behave as a pressure redistributing foam? And that's where I went into the, and it was a little bit of an uphill battle because you approach a chemist and say, I wanna remove chemicals from this product that's tried, tested, and, and admired by so many.

And why would you want to do that? Well, I'm looking for an organic, so, so a lot of chemists are so proud of chemical reactions. It's hard to have them detach from that and say, Hey, we want to go with something organic. So it took me about three and a half years to develop the product. At which point I thought I would be, you know, giving the formula to someone and basically getting a royalty possibly from it. But I was realizing it was being misused. The industry wanted to use my product for marketing purposes and not continue the journey of learning more about sleep and sleep and recovery. So that's been a constantly evolving and learning experience for me. Probably the big growth happened for me from 2005 to 2012 when we came up with our first athlete's version. But it's been constant then ever since I've, I've, I'm always curious and always looking to move the needle on wellness and so that's, that's how my journey started and it's still ongoing. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. So it started with, with love. It started with, you know, your father. And, you know, again, you've impacted the lives of so many people, and also through your work and you know, the, the people that you're impacting, these high performers who other people are aspiring to connect with and to learn from. It's just, it has this amazing trickle down effect. And, you know, I, your, your father would just, what do you think your father would say about this and your success? 

JACK DELL’ACCIO: Well, he was around for the early, or for the early part of the company. And, uh, so he was, he was always really proud of me. He was a, he was a role model for me. So, so I, I think he'd be happy where, where the integrity because I've, I've put people first and family first and, and that's kind of from him as well. So as much as he was an entrepreneur himself, it was always about community and about people. And so I think he'd be proud of where, where we're going with it. And, yeah. So thank you for bringing him up. It's a nice memories as well. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. 

JACK DELL’ACCIO: Yeah. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Especially the impact on hockey as well. Yes. I'm sure that helps. 

JACK DELL’ACCIO: Well, you, it was actually kind of interesting because, you know, I, I would tell him kind of in, in the late stages, you know, some of the players that we were working

 with 'cause he was a huge hockey fan as well, so he was just so happy. You could tell that he was happy that I was working with some of the top players in the NHL and, and so he was, he was proud of where, where the direction that was going. That was also bringing me joy as well. So that brought happiness to him as well. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. Well, again, thank you so much for, you know, doing this work. And I know that it was a lot, it was a lot of work over the years to figure this stuff out. And, and thank you for, I mean, you're supporting my health and my family's health and I just really do appreciate that. And again, everybody go to my essentia.com/model. You're gonna get a special discount off of. And there's a variety of different mattresses, different levels for you to check out. And of course you could check out the research there as well. And is there anywhere else for people to, to learn more, connect with you? 

JACK DELL’ACCIO: It really is all there. Also, everyone should know they can call our 800 number chat email. Everyone's there to help. A primary mission that everyone at as Essentia is making sure people are sleeping well, sleeping healthy. You're not gonna get anybody pushing you to buy anything 'cause this is kind of organic where. It has to be right for you. We wanna make sure that we're assisting people so you can call our, our, our team specifically just for information and learning.

And they're glad to teach. And basically I, I've gotten involved to help people in certain situations, so I'm always glad to help give some direction and help. But that's what we're primarily there for. And that's I think where everyone has great experience with us because that's, that really is we, when we bring people into the team, it's people who want to help others and they get the satisfaction in knowing that that's what they're doing day in and day out. And it seems like, again, when you talking about the mattress world, it's just seems like it's not a fit where it, it where you're helping people, but we, we truly are and we feel blessed with that. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. Amazing. Amazing. I appreciate you so much for coming to hang out with us. This has been awesome. I really do appreciate it.

JACK DELL’ACCIO: Thank you. Thank you. I really appreciate this as well. It's great meeting in person. Finally. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yes, we're gonna do this again. 

JACK DELL’ACCIO: Yes, I'm sure. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Maybe go to a King's game. 

JACK DELL’ACCIO: Definitely. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Here in LA. That would be amazing. All right. The one and only Jack Dell'Accio. Thank you so much for hanging out with me today and tuning into this powerful episode. I hope that you got a lot of value outta this. Again, this is all about insights. This is about analyzing self-assessing what's going on with my sleep relationship, my relationship with myself, and my own sleep, but also my partners, and what can we do to create an atmosphere and an environment that is conducive and supportive for everybody's sleep and awareness is that first domino.

Again, that's the key and being more intentional about this. There isn't some one cookie cutter way to go about this, but hopefully this was a catalyst for you to analyze this part of your life because your sleep life is deeply impacting your waking life. Again, head over and check out Essentia. Go to myEssentia.com/model for that special discount. And also just head over there, check out the website, check out some of the research. It really is fascinating and even just keeping your eyes on the prize, because this isn't something that I did overnight. I was slowly changing things and investing in things for my sleep wellness, you know, for my sleep sanctuary, and it was something that took time and it was something that, of course, each step along the way really helped to upgrade and uplevel and support my sleep in a way that sleeping is something that you're just gonna do anyways.

Why not have it be as good as it can be? We got some amazing masterclasses and world-class guests coming your way very, very soon. So make sure to stay tuned. Take care, have an amazing day, and I'll talk to you soon. 

And for more after the show, make sure to head over to the model health show.com. That's where you can find all of the show notes. You can find transcriptions videos for each episode. And if you got a comment, you can leave me a comment there as well. And please make sure to head over to iTunes and leave us a rating to let everybody know that the show is awesome and I appreciate that so much and take care, I promise, to keep giving you more powerful, empowering, great content to help you transform your life. Thanks for tuning in.