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Welcome to Kwik Brain Bite Sized brain hacks for busy people who want to learn faster and achieve more. I'm your coach, Jim Kwik. Free your mind. Let's imagine if we could access 100% of our brain's capacity.
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I wasn't high, wasn't wired, just clear. I knew what I needed to do and how to do it. I know kung fu.
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Show me. Welcome back to the Kwik Brain Podcast. I am your host and your brain coach, Jim Kwik. Do you have challenges getting a good night's sleep? And how is your brain going through that? How is it performing? And so in this episode, we, by request, we have a lot of people who say that even they had a good night's sleep or not a good night's sleep. They had eight hours of sleep, but their brain's still not functioning. It's as if they are at a sleep deficit. And so we're gonna go through strategies on practical things you could do to get better sleep so that you could learn better, so you could focus the next day, so you could study, have more mental energy and so much more. Our guest is actually back. We have done a podcast episode which we will link in the show notes@jimquik.com notes and it was on Sleeping like a Pro. His name is Jack Delacio. He's the CEO of Essentia Mattress. We are live at our limitless live conference in San Diego. Welcome, Jack.
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Thank you. Great to be here.
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So I want to talk about cognitive performance, cognitive health and sleep. And you've been in this industry for a couple decades?
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Yeah, 21 years.
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21 years.
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As sent you a few years before that, in the development of the materials themselves, but 25 for me personally.
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All right, so why don't we go just maybe a couple minutes on your origin story. I always find it interesting how people get on a certain path. Like for me, brain injury, grandmother had Alzheimer's. I had learning challenges. And, you know, my inspiration was my desperation and also my mission. What was yours?
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For mine, it was back then. I've always been a little entrepreneurial, and I kind of tend to make my personal life, my business life as well, kind of becomes a little more harmonious that way. But 26 years ago, my dad was diagnosed with cancer. And through his challenges and battles, he was really very sensitized to chemicals. So in learning about cleaning, his sleep environment, his indoor environment, we were just realizing what was getting reactions. On the other hand, switching to organic had other issues as pain management and allergens. So there was always some Type of triggers. We're learning from these triggers. And then that point when you're faced with these challenges, you're also exploring all kinds of solutions. So you become open to your mind, opens up to potential alternatives. My entrepreneurial side says, well, why isn't a better product exist? So I spent three and a half years looking at how we can change the behavior of latex foam, which is an organic material, but how do we shift and make that a performance based foam? Better pressure redistribution, better posture support. Three and a half years later, develop that product and launch the company Essentia.
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And it's interesting how people struggled. Like, for me, I had my challenges with learning and I researched it for a very long time and then it worked for me. But then I was actually upset. I was like, why wasn't I taught this back, you know, in school and such? And I want to help. Other people are suffering the way I did. Right. And it's interesting that you go through a challenge and it lets some positive change where you're helping so many people now because of that challenge. So similar to like last night, Amy inspiring other people with her adversity as well. So what's with the myth here? Because why are people waking up? Is it the environment that's stimulating them, that's kind of shocking them in a way that they wake up and some people, they have trouble falling asleep, some people have trouble staying asleep or they'll wake up a few times. Maybe it's not even to use the bathroom. What have you found in over the past 20 years?
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Interesting. Taking the approach of people who are consciously making an effort to do better. Because obviously there's the masses that are not even paying attention to their sleep. But those who are making a real effort, what's taking them off course is they're really focused on their sleep hygiene, but not their sleep environment. And really the two go together. It's great to have a routine start and stop at the same time. Different types of triggers that help you with the onset trigger the mind for the onset of sleep. But the sleep environment is just as critical as that because that's where the stimulants come from.
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If let's say the average person sleeps eight hours, that's a third of your day that you're in that environment. Right. And so that's something that how many of you create some kind of sleep ritual or sanctuary? Interesting.
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Yeah. And so that sleep environment is critical because those are the stimulants that trigger. Accelerate your central nervous system rather than slow it down. And it could be the toxins, it could be heat, your stimulant could be EMFs in the environment, it could be allergens. These are, you know, it could be pain points. The most common people recognize as pain, and that's when they think they need to change mattress. But there's way beyond pain management when it comes to the stimulants. And I think one of the primary one is obviously the toxins. Because if you're breathing in those toxins, your central nervous system is not at rest. Thermoregulation is the big myth out there. People think they need to just drop the temperature of the room. It goes way beyond that. Because being cool or refrigerating yourself either through just the room setting, that's great for the onset of sleep. But to truly get your central nervous system constantly on a slowdown, to push the limits of REM sleep and deep sleep, it's something that has to happen over the whole course of sleep, the six to eight hours. As soon as you're picking up in temperature, that central nervous system is accelerating. And we see in our sleep studies that that's when you tend to wake up. You stay longer in the light sleep cycles than the deep sleep cycles. The deep sleep cycles are the game changers for cognitive health, physical health, physical recovery. It all happens in deep sleep and REM sleep. So our obsession is how do we keep you there longer? And it's that elimination of all these stimulants, the common thing that most people are looking for because they hear that sleeping cool is a game changer. And it is a game changer, but it's not through mechanical or chemical refrigeration systems. It has to happen organically. Our needs change every single night. If I have a very active day, I'll need to expel a lot of heat that night. If I have a lot of red meat, I'll need to expel a lot of heat that night. But if I've meditated all day, I won't have the same needs. Same thing happens at different points in your life. Women at a certain point need to expel more heat. Other parts of their lives, they're looking to retain heat. So it's not a one that fits all. So what we really worked on is the, the formulation of our organic material just to be able to have that heat expel from your body. And so two partners side by side on the same mattress with two completely different needs are both getting the thermal regulation that's needed. And that's where we see how we move the needle in REM sleep and.
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Deep sleep, so that's one stimulus that could wake you up is temperature. Maybe we could talk about the other ones that are big needle movers that really affect everyone who's listening, their sleep quality.
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I say number one is toxins, number two is temperature. Those are the things that really move the needle on your central.
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These are toxins. We won't mention brands, but you go to department store, you have something shipped with an 800 number or whatever.
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Yes.
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What kind of toxins? Why do they even use it?
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Well, that's, that's basically the least expensive form of foam and it's pretty much what's used over 90% of the time. You're getting polyurethane foams. And also the way that mattresses are made in order to make them somewhat comfortable, the lowest density is on top, followed by these high density foams that have high density off gassing. And the majority of people are buying springs and coil systems which again, don't have the durability, don't have the support needs, but also kind of become a attractions for EMFs as well to shift back to toxins. That is the most economical material out there. So those polyurethane foams is what's used pretty much everywhere. Polyester batting, polyester covers. So all that system are just triggers for your central nervous system.
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This. Well, my mind is staying on that. The springs inside of the mattress being metal.
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Yes.
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Could be an attractor point for EMFs.
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It basically is an extension, creating your body into an antenna. So it's interesting because what we've looked at, a solution is an Informed Quartz solution in the foam. And that's where we really get into the nitty gritty of obsessing on every little element. But what we've been able to identify, and we work with institutional customers, so everything has to be evidence based. So what we've been able to identify is that the blood cell behavior during EMF transmissions, like phone calls, downloads, there's a lot of clustering going on, a lot of ruleau effect, which is called, which stops oxygen from flowing as freely through your blood. That's something that happens with EMFs and more so with coils, because that's creating an antenna effect. And so you're constantly getting everything flowing through your body, through these beds. By basically changing that around, not having coil systems in place, having Informed Quartz as part of our latex formula, it becomes the dominant wave in the room. So transmissions can come in, you can still stay on phone calls, you can do your downloads. But these signals to your phones do not have to be erratic and just coming from everywhere. They can come in in an organic wave. They'll still communicate and transmit. However, it doesn't affect your bloodstream. And we've been able to showcase that through blood work where with this informed cords you get zero effect on your bloodstream.
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How many stimulants are waking us up? If you're to put a number to it, I mean with the toxins, the.
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Potential EMFs, we identify eight toxins. EMFs, mold. Because mold is a big issue. Until I started exploring this reached out by the military to look into mold issue in barracks. And I thought I was really just looking into something for the military, to be honest with you. And then I discovered that I think it's 25% of American homes have mold issues. Not everyone recognizes that they have that problem. But mold spores will just attach to everything and exponentially grow. That's one of the things that we've been able to overcome at essentia as well. Pain points is the one that most people know about. Once you're getting neck pain, back pain, shoulder pain, that's when you time to change your mattress. That's the obvious one thermoregulation, which is the body temperature and that body temperature management that has to happen through the eight hours blood flow not just from the EMF, but from that proper support and proper oxygenation from, from the bed. So when you're making any movements in bed, it's important that blood flow is not blocked because anytime you're putting any type of obstruction kind of wakes you up. Even though if you most people think that they can log in seven to eight hours. The beauty of today's age is that most people are in wearables and they're able to identify that, hey, I could be sleeping for eight hours, but if I've only had two hours or one and a half hours of REM and deep sleep, that's not nearly enough. And by eliminating these stimulants, it takes that number substantially higher. We typically see people converting to three, three and a half hours, sometimes more. In REM sleep and deep sleep, you actually don't need eight hours as long as you're logging in that time.
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So it's not the amount of sleep, it's the quality of the deep sleep.
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We have athletes that manage to only log in five and a half hours of sleep with about three and a half hours of REM and deep sleep. And they feel like a million bucks.
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And then what's going on physiologically that could affect our cognitive health or performance in REM and or DEEP.
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That's really an interesting thing. About two years ago, we did a full study with 75 professional athletes. Right. Our goal was to identify the impacts of eliminating these stimulants and how we can extend REM sleep and deep sleep. We had through the roof for success. We identified between 20 and 60% increase in rem sleep and deep sleep. There's a whole other side of that study that we didn't really talk about as much because it was subjective. All the players answered a questionnaire. Now, those questions were really related to happiness focus. Basically an overwhelming amount of the participants that were increasing REM sleep and deep sleep, they reported much more happiness, better focus, absorbing the lessons of the day and the plays a lot more in ease, less stress, less anxiety. So there's so much that happens through improved sleep. It's actually incredible. It's the foundation to everything you want to achieve.
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Okay, so if somebody was going to ask you, friend, family member, what are the three most important things to optimize your sleep? Being a sleep researcher and expert, what forward, what's your go to?
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Well, the main thing, when it's family and friends, they first question, jack, you really know this stuff because they knew me growing up. Right.
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It's hard to be a prophet in your own hometown.
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I experienced this myself, but ultimately we've done all that thinking at ascension to eliminate it. But I go in that order and number one is detoxify the room. So that's the priority, number one. So if you're going to be limited to what you're going to have, the toxins is number one. Number two is trying to manage some level of thermoregulation is the number two. If you can't have a product that is so porous as ours that allows for that naturally to happen, well, then you'll have to kind of chase a little bit more with room temperature using natural sheets, breathable sheets. So as much of that possible as the thermal regulation would be, the number two part number three is mitigating EMFs, because we really see that as it's.
A
Just like turning off WI fi routers at night. Exactly.
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So if you can't have a component like our quartz that mitigates the impacts of it, well, then you got to shut it all down and make sure that you don't have any streaming in the bedroom, any phone calls in the bedroom. You still have the signals of WI Fi that are everywhere. Right? The data signals are everywhere. But the less instruments you have in the room, the less impactful they are because they're not pulling them into the bedroom. Definitely. Anybody that speaks to me, they never sleep on coils.
A
We use one of those timers, outlet timers, that just automatically shuts off at a certain time and turns back on.
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Yep.
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And just makes it easy. Just anything I could do in my life that just automates. I don't have to think about it. Right. So you don't have to struggle with decision fatigue. You don't want to waste all those good decisions. Just remember to do that and whether you'd be focusing on something else.
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That's a great tool, actually.
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It's inexpensive.
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Yeah. And it makes a lot of sense and it keeps you disciplined for that balancing sleep hygiene and sleep environment that those two really go together well.
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Well, a lot of people also on their digital devices, just a reminder, nobody in this room, of course, because you know so much. They're not on your devices first thing in the morning or definitely not late at night. Because it's not just the blue light that's pulling your brain into thinking it's still daylight. So you're not creating the melatonin and so on. It's a stimulus. Like Nobody would invite 100 strangers into your room at night to talk about whatever they want to talk about or first thing in the morning. Right. But it's like as I feel like I'm doing that and that's very stimulating. Especially depending on the algorithm and what's being presented to you.
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That's right, exactly. It's actually pretty incredible. That's a great, A great hack of automating and allowing that system to take place that way. But that's been a lot of the, A lot of the consulting I've been doing, a lot of the coaching has really been to focus people on their environment so much more in their routines. If you can set a routine and stick to that routine, your mind will anticipate that. So if you're doing the same thing every night, it will expect that if you're going to change your schedule every night, your mind will not be able to predict, will not be able to anticipate. So if you're in bed at 10 o' clock every single night, by 9pm, your brain is signaling it's time to wind down. Those are all hygiene, sleep hygiene, which is great for the onset of sleep, but it's your sleep environment that's going to take you past the line on REM sleep and deep sleep.
A
You know, I see all These interviews all the time. It's been my personal experience, whether these are executives or they're world leaders that say, you know, the biggest advice that they give is don't make a decision, important decision on a bad night's sleep, right? And just a bad night's sleep impairs every physiological function. You know this, right? Especially, you know, at this event. And you want to stay up late, you don't see certain people, and you throw off your clock and how you're thinking the next day, how's your focus the next day? So sleep is really the. Probably the most. I don't know. I would say if there's one that's up there for sure.
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When I was. When I started 20 years ago, and I would be consulting with some people, specifically athletes, it was interesting where they thought that the most important thing that they needed to do was in their training, followed by nutrition, followed by rest and recovery. Today, that's been flipped. And most. Most health professionals in athletics and pro athletics will know that the difference, the game changer, is in their rest and recovery. The training is automatic. It's as if we've been running this as if we're adolescents and, you know, teenagers just think about working hard and training hard when they want to be really good at a sport. But the difference between the best athlete and the second best athlete usually happens in recovery. And you look at the sleep hygiene and sleep environment of the top 10 performing athletes, and the difference between the next 10 is all in their recovery. The better they recover, the better they train, the better they perform mentally and physically.
A
We had Dr. Gabrielle Lyon here at Limitless Live. You're watching the recording. She's a physical specimen, right. And knows a lot about athleticism, physical fitness, muscle. I asked her how her sleep was. She slept 10 hours that night. And again, quantity and also quality, obviously, as well. Hey, we have a few minutes here, either online, if they want to show the chat, or. Or if anybody here has a question, ideally a question that could support most people here. So the question was, have you done any research or have you seen any studies around sleep apnea and insomnia?
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We've done very little research on sleep apnea specifically, but we have been able to see huge success with clients who have used our incline sleep kit. So our incline sleep is. And you don't have to use our kit. I'll give you a quick $10 version of it. But sleeping at an incline, which is not an adjustable bed, that your bed is flat but inclined 5 or 10 degrees, whatever your Comfort level is it eliminates a lot of the pressure up top, opens up your breathing channels. So just having that inclined sleep can help tremendously. And we've heard so many customers saying that we have a system which is a little more intricate, which is part of our adjustable base where you can use a remote control and incline or drop it down. But simply taking blocks and putting it at your headboard and raising it up and creating that incline sleep will do that for you as well. So that's something you may want to really try out.
A
The question has to do with towards bedtime, your body high body temperature, how to be able to bring that down. Also because if your heart rate is going faster, you're not going to sleep.
B
So basically this is something that your circumstances force you, that you can't have that typical two to three hours of wind down. So usually from there is shower and be able to force that immediate temperature change to happen. And from there then you try to get onto the onset of sleep. You need to be. The problem is you can't be in a cold environment. If you're overheating and you're in a cold room, you'll be perspiring as well. So especially if you're getting onto a synthetic mattress. So you need to get onto organic natural products. If you're going to be on synthetic products, your body heat, even in a cold room, you'll be sweating. And nobody sleeps comfortable if they're sleeping wet. See, the key is how do you stay dry for that first hour until that body temperature has expelled enough heat in an environment that allows your body heat to be released. So my first step to you is shower and sleep on organic products.
A
You work with a lot of athletes. We've talked about it before in previous episode. The NBA, the NFL, the mlb, all the letters. How have you seen recovery with your clients? With the research from helping people bounce back and heal.
B
First of all, I'd like to address that with saying we're all athletes in our own lives. So just so we're not getting the pro salaries, we all have to treat ourselves like athletes because we all have our challenges of the day. We all need to show up up and be our best self every day. So that recovery is important for all of us. What I've really noticed with the athletes is the better their sleep, increased deep sleep. It's incredible how the mind will trigger better immune systems so they'll stay healthier. The brain will help in delivering the messages for recovery. So that clarity that you see and feel daily by in your consciousness that you're feeling better. It's the same thing. The mind is also connecting to your body to heal better, to be more focused and avoid. You're actually avoiding injury because when you're hazy and not thinking well, you're not performing well, you're taking missteps. Those missteps lead to injury. So there's so much benefit to sleep. As all of us are personal athletes in our lives, we all need to think like those pro athletes.
A
How long after you transition from an essencia mattress, for example, do people start seeing a noticeable benefit? And I'm sure it's a bio individual.
B
Yes, it absolutely is an individual result. We have people that say from day one they're already sensing it. But typically I hear people on their second or third week where they're really seeing those full changes take in effect because it's a cumulative thing. You've been sleeping, potentially you've been sleeping wrong for years. And now that change, you'll feel the good change happening immediately. But when does it actually impact your life? Well, it's only weeks, it's not that long. And then you've got to stick to it and stick to proper environment, proper hygiene and. And it'll make everything better.
A
For me within 72 hours I was seeing a difference personally. But again, I imagine everyone's different. If you'd like to find more information, you go to myessentia.com kwik kwik and use code kwik and you will get a special discount for our community as a thank you for being one of our quick brain listeners. Jack, thank you so much. Give me a hand.
B
Thank you.
Title: The Sleep Crisis: Your Bedroom Could Be Hijacking Your Brain
Host: Jim Kwik
Guest: Jack Delacio (CEO, Essentia Mattress)
Date: January 26, 2026
Main Theme:
This episode explores why many people—even those getting “enough” sleep—still wake up tired, unfocused, and cognitively sluggish. Jim Kwik and sleep/environment expert Jack Delacio break down how hidden factors in your bedroom might be sabotaging your rest, and they offer actionable strategies for optimizing your sleep environment to supercharge mental performance.
“People are really focused on their sleep hygiene, but not their sleep environment. And really the two go together.”
— Jack Delacio, [04:26]
“The deep sleep cycles are the game changers for cognitive health, physical health, physical recovery. It all happens in deep sleep and REM sleep.”
— Jack Delacio, [06:16]
“An overwhelming amount of the participants…reported much more happiness, better focus, absorbing the lessons of the day…less stress, less anxiety.”
— Jack Delacio, [13:32]
([14:08] – [15:10])
“If you can’t have a component like our quartz that mitigates the impacts of [EMF], well, then you got to shut it all down and make sure you don’t have any streaming in the bedroom, any phone calls in the bedroom.”
— Jack Delacio, [15:10]
“It’s not the amount of sleep, it’s the quality of the deep sleep.”
— Jim Kwik, [12:35]
“You don’t have to be a pro athlete. We all have to treat ourselves like athletes because we all have our challenges of the day. ... The better their sleep, increased deep sleep, it’s incredible how the mind will trigger better immune systems so they’ll stay healthier.”
— Jack Delacio, [22:10]
“Nobody would invite 100 strangers into your room at night to talk about whatever they want to talk about… But it’s like I feel like I’m doing that [when checking my phone before bed] and that’s very stimulating, especially depending on the algorithm and what’s being presented to you.”
— Jim Kwik, [16:10]
Jim Kwik maintains his enthusiastic, practical “brain coach” approach—always focusing on actionable shortcuts and real-world results. Jack Delacio blends technical expertise with hands-on, accessible tips, drawing on decades of experience with high performers and mainstream sleepers alike.