Biohacking Your Sleep: The Results!

Sleep Deeper, Live Longer: The Results of Biohacking Your Sleep

Sleep: The Pillar of Wellness

Sleep! BIG and BOLD because it’s not just a hot topic; it’s a health revolution. It started a few years ago and we see it continuing today, sleep has stepped into the spotlight alongside fitness and nutrition as a core pillar of health and wellness. But at Essentia, we’re not just following the trend—we’ve been leading the charge.

Over 20 years ago, Essentia’s journey began by creating a mattress solution for people undergoing aggressive treatments where air quality, comfort, and support were vital. Today, our innovation continues to push the boundaries of what’s possible for recovery, performance, and sleep quality.

Non-REM Sleep vs. REM Sleep: The Building Blocks of Recovery

Your sleep journey each night loops through two primary phases: non-REM and REM sleep. According to John Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, these phases include four non-REM stages and one REM stage. While REM sleep was long considered the most critical for memory and learning, new research shows stages 3 and 4 of non-REM sleep are equally vital. These stages support physical growth, immune function, and repair.

Here's a quick breakdown of the typical sleep cycle: 

• Stage 1 - A brief, light sleep lasting a few minutes, where waking is easy.
  
  
• Stage 2 - Brain waves slow down, and heart rate and breathing regulate; still a light sleep phase. 
  
  
• Stage 3 & 4 - The deep sleep stages, crucial for physical recovery, growth, and immune support.
  
  
• REM Stage - A highly active brain stage where dreams occur, breathing quickens, and the body is temporarily paralyzed. This stage is essential for cognitive adaptability and brain detoxification. 

Throughout the night, you'll cycle through these stages 4 to 5 times, spending progressively less time in deep sleep and more in REM sleep.

How to Measure Sleep: A Guide to Tracking Your Sleep

Curious about all the devices tracking sleep? From wearables to bedside gadgets, these tools analyze body movements, heart rates, and more to provide insights into your sleep patterns. But are they reliable? Here’s the scoop:

There are a few different types of devices, from wearables that stay on the sleeper and incorporate heart rate to measure sleep factors or others that rest on or under the mattress and track movement they are all looking to find similar data for you to analyze: 

• Sleep Duration: By tracking the time you’re inactive, the devices can record when you fall asleep at night and when you stir in the morning.
• Sleep Quality: Trackers can detect interrupted sleep, letting you know when you’re tossing and turning or waking during the night.
• Sleep Phases: Some tracking systems track the phases of your sleep and time your alarm to go off during a period when you’re sleeping less deeply.

Popular Devices and Features:

1. Whoop - Tracks sleep cycles, sleep debt, performance, and quality of sleep.
2. Oura Ring - Scores sleep with metrics like total sleep, time spent in each sleep stage, and HRV.
3. BioStrap - Monitors sleep, recovery, stress, and heart heath via cloud-based insights.
4. FitBit - Combines heart rate and motion tracking with goal-setting features.

While tracers can't match the precision of medical sleep studies, they're great for identifying patterns and improving sleep habits. 

How to Leverage Sleep Tracking Insights

Tracking your sleep can provide invaluable insights into patterns and disruptions - but it's important not to fixate on nightly fluctuations. Instead, focus on trends over time to get a clearer picture of your sleep health and recovery. 

• Use wearable devices or apps to monitor sleep stages, heart rate variability (HRV), and recovery scores.
  
  
• Aggregate your date over a 10-day period to identify patterns rather than obsessing over nightly variations. Look for consistent trends, such as whether your REM or deep sleep improves after specific routines.
  
  
• Identify habits or routines that lead to better sleep and replicate them consistently.
  
  
• If you are an athlete or goal-oriented for your fitness, adjust your training intensity based on these longer-term insights to avoid overtraining and maximize performance gains.

By taking a broader view of your data, you'll gain actionable insights while avoiding stress from minor nightly inconsistencies. 

Double Blind Sleep Study Featuring Essentia: Proven Performance 

We believe in backing our claims with data. That's why Essentia participated in a double-blind sleep study with 75 professional athletes. The goal? To measure the impact of the Dormeuse REM9 Active performance mattress on sleep quality over 10 weeks. 

Study Design 

75 professional athletes participated in the 10-week study, for the duration of the study each athlete wore the same approved sleep tracking device to ensure that all data sets tracked were the same. The goal was to track the duration of non-REM deep sleep and REM sleep.

Phase 1: Athletes slept on their existing mattresses to establish baseline data. 

Phase 2: Athletes were given unbranded mattresses. 20 received the Essentia Doreuse REM9 performance mattresses, and 55 received other premium mattresses including the leading memory foam, gel support, and organic mattresses. 

Results of the Double-Blind Sleep Study

All data shown below is aggregate data of all 75 professional athletes. Each athlete does have their own sleep schedule and daily routine, as a part of the study the athlete was not asked to change any part of their regular day-to-day schedule. The data below is presently weekly, based on the average of the daily data supplied by each sleeper. 

Deep Sleep: 

• Essentia REM9 sleepers experienced a 10% increase in deep sleep over 10 weeks. 
• Phase 1 baseline: 2.15 hours/night. 
• Phase 2 results: Essentia sleepers averaged 2.375 hours/night, with a steady increase in time spent in deep sleep over time. Whereas the other non-Essentia mattresses did not see a marked change in time spent in deep sleep when compared to phase 1. 

Some individual athletes reported up to 60% more time in REM and deep sleep cycles! Over time, the Essentia mattress consistently enhances sleep quality, proving its value as a performance enhancer. 

Real-Life Results from Essentia Sleepers

Don't just take our word for it. Here's what our community has shared with us about their own sleep quality: 

First up, Dr. Jessica Folz shared her sleep results the morning after sleeping on her Dormeuse REM9 for the fist time! Click play to watch her full video: 

The Takeaway: Sleep Smarter with Essentia