William Curb: Welcome to Hacking Your ADHD. I'm your host, William Kerb, and I have ADHD. On this podcast, I dig into the tools, tactics, and best practices to help you work with your ADHD brain.
Hey team! So we've got a bit of a different kind of episode today. I'm talking with Derek Hales, the founder and editor-in-chief of NAPLAP, a mattress review website. While that might not scream ADHD, I was interested in having this conversation because so many of us with ADHD have issues surrounding sleep. And what really impressed me with NAPLAP is how they've really focused on turning mattress testing into more of an actual science, moving away from the it just feels soft kind of vibes and towards using thermal cameras, accelerometers, and other gadgets to really see what's going on with each mattress.
And I know how that sounds, but it is actually kind of cool. Anyway, in our conversation today, we talked a lot about what goes on in choosing a mattress, what makes something good for one person and not the right fit for someone else. We spend time talking about a system's first approach to sleep, how your bed frame sheets and even the light from things like your alarm clock can either support or sabotage your REM cycles. And of course, we also touch on some of the unique challenges of ADHD and sleep from circadian rhythm delays to just trying to get our brains to quiet down at night.
If you'd like to follow along on the show notes page, you can find that at hackinggradiehd.com/290. All right, keep on listening to find out how to stop being a victim of Big Mattress. Normally, I start a lot of these by being like, I have a really exciting thing to talk about today. And I am really excited about sleep, but I don't know if everyone is. So one of those things where people are like, yeah, but it's sleep, everybody does that.
I'm like, but I really like when I get sleep. So you run NAP lab. Tell me a little bit about NAP lab and like, how did you end up doing this?
Derek Hales: Sure. So NAP lab is a platform where we objectively test mattresses with a battery of objective and day edge of a test, we collect as much information and data about each mattress as possible. And then we use that to better understand how that mattress performs, how it feels and how it compares to every other mattress that we've ever tested. And then use all that information to help make some, really smart recommendations around what mattresses are best for, what types of sleepers and groups of sleepers and preferences. And ultimately just trying to help our readers and viewers find mattresses that fit their needs, preferences and budget as quickly and as officially as possible.
William Curb: That is kind of like a funny niche to get into though, being like mattresses. I feel like I'm going to very much relate to the story that you're going to tell though, because I'm like, just imagining why someone would get into mattresses.
Derek Hales: Yeah. I mean, it started with just a personal problem. My wife and I got married in 2014. We initially were sleeping on my old full-size mattress from high school. And pretty quickly, we were in the market for a new bed.
We wanted something bigger, something that was made in this millennia. And so we started kind of the whole process of going kind of in store, trying beds, lying on beds. And we found stuff we liked, but the prices were just outrageous, four, five, $6,000. We were a newly married couple, pretty frugal people and just couldn't pull the trigger. It was just too much money. So we ended up just taking a chance on these kind of online mattress companies that were just getting started in 2014.
It was really a very new thing at the time. We were able to buy a king-size, all-foam mattress for 600 bucks, a great deal. The mattress ended up not being a great fit for us. We returned it, but really good return process, no issues there. And we were able to try another one and we liked that one a little bit better.
And just kind of was like a fun weekend hobby project and just kind of helped some other people just put up a website with reviews for each of the beds that we had tried to compare us in for each of those beds, talked about like what it was like to go and store, like that experience, and just through the website, just to see what it would do. And it really seemed to strike a chord. A lot of people were dealing with the exact same problem that I was dealing with. And people really liked what we were doing.
So we were immediately getting a lot of traffic and immediately getting lots of requests for us to test other models. So we just kind of kept getting new mattresses, kept testing, kept adding to the site. Within a few months, it had more than replaced my full-time income. And I made the decision to leave my sort of full-time marketing job to become a professional mattress tester.
William Curb: Nice. Yeah. And I mean, as 100%, I can see why it took off because that is like such a... It's so hard to, when you don't know what you don't know about mattresses and you go into the store and you like lie down and like, is this good? I don't know. Well, I like lying here eight hours. I can't, that's not a... I can't just lie down in the store for eight hours. Absolutely.
Derek Hales: Yeah. The Insta-Experience kind of cuts both ways on the one hand. It's like great because you do get to try it, but like laying on a bed for a few minutes is just not the same as sleeping on it for eight hours. Not the same as sleeping on it for weeks and months and it's breaking in.
And so it's really hard to know. And then you've got the pressure of the salesmen and then a lot of these beds at the store are very expensive. You're usually talking $3,000 or more for what they sort of deem as a quality mattress in the store. You're going to pay a lot and taking a risk can feel pretty risky and pretty bad if you get it wrong.
William Curb: Yeah. And then you have the experience with the online where you're just like, I don't know anything about this company.
Derek Hales: Yeah, exactly. I think it cuts both ways. In the world of online, you've got better trial periods and refund policies, which is great, but you have sort of so many options. It's almost sort of analysis paralysis for you. If you're in the store, they probably only have like two or four brands in the store. So it's just kind of, you're going to go with one of those, you're not. But if you're shopping online, you're looking at hundreds of brands potentially, all of them that are telling very similar stories on their product page about how it's the greatest thing since sliced bread and it's the perfect mattress for everybody. And it can be just really hard to know what information to believe. Yeah.
William Curb: And I know the last time I bought a mattress, I spent a lot of times looking for actual personal recommendations and kind of things because I was like, I don't know what to trust online.
Derek Hales: Yeah. The world of, I think online reviews and recommendations is also complex. And I think people have a healthy level of distrust for online reviews. And for good reason, I think there's a lot of artificial reviews, paid reviews, sponsored reviews, manipulated. It was really hard to know, like, even if you see review that looks good, like, is this review genuine? Is this a real person? Is there something here that can be trusted? I think it's just one more layer, why it's so hard to shop for a mattress today.
William Curb: Yeah. And it would be, yeah, especially with all the AI review things coming out now and you're just like, ugh, I don't. So I appreciate the thoroughness behind the site. And I'm kind of curious what you're saying, so you're objectively reviewing them. So what goes into an objective review?
Derek Hales: So we try to pull as much objective data out of each mattress as possible. So instead of just me laying on a bed and saying, well, that feels cool, where we're using a thermal camera to measure surface level temperatures and see how those temperatures decline over time. Instead of me, you know, doing a sort of a temperopedic wine glass test where we have a glass of wine and we're saying, oh, look, the motion's so low. We put an accelerometer on one side of the mattress and we drop a medicine ball on the other. So we can see objectively through numbers and data exactly how much acceleration is generated on that mattress.
What's the duration of time that we see motion generated on that mattress? And so we have, you know, quantifiable sort of measurement based data for as many of our tests as possible, so that we can look at the numbers and crunch those, not just for that specific mattress, but against everything we've tested. And that lets us find some really interesting insights so we can say, hey, based on the data, this mattress is in the top 10% of everything we've tested with respect to cooling, but hey, maybe it's got, you know, higher motion transfer. So it's in the bottom 30% when it comes to motion. Those sort of insights I think really help people, you know, to decide and sort of sort of look past sort of all the marketing speak, all the brand speak that you see on product pages and say, you know, this thing is cool, but the motion is not great, but the response is okay. And then you can find the things that are important to you as an individual sleeper, as a partner pair and decide, you know, which mattress is ultimately going to be the best match for your needs.
William Curb: I'm kind of interested here too. Are there certain measurements you find people really gravitating towards as being like the more important measurements?
Derek Hales: The two most important things, according to our sort of ongoing surveys, cooling and pressure relief, those two are by far the things that sleepers care about the most.
William Curb: Having any time I'm at a hotel, I'm always just like, this mattress is either going to be like rock hard, or I'm just going to be insanely hot.
Derek Hales: It's interesting how many hotels sort of subscribe to that. And then you also have sort of either rock hard or very soft. I'll find out like a lot of, you know, nicer hotels, you know, they sort of like go the opposite like into the way in terms of like how soft the bed is like, it's super, super thick, big fluffy pillow top. But if you like that, you know, that's great. But if you're someone that is a little bit more support, it can feel a bit squishy and unsupportive.
William Curb: Yeah, I also remember being at Airbnb a number of years ago that had very old, I think it was like a sleep number, but it had like an air pocket underneath that you had to inflate. And it just made me roll to one side or the other because it was like in the middle.
Derek Hales: Yeah, the sort of old school sleep numbers, and even some of their newer ones that are more their current line, you got to have like the single sort of inflatable bag. And what it does is make the edges in the middle very unsupportive. And depending on your firm's level, you could sort of be pushed kind of like off of the very sort of middle of the mattress towards an edge, which then you're kind of laying on like the foam encasement layer, which has its own sort of, you know, problems where it's not feeling great. So yeah, the sort of first generation of adjustables particular, I think we've unfortunately come a long way since then. But occasionally, you'll encounter those at Airbnb as an elsewhere.
William Curb: If I'm looking for a mattress, how do I know what I want to be looking for? Like, is it because a lot of times I, you know, I'll look at like these pages of data and I'm like, that's great, but I don't actually know what's important to me.
Derek Hales: Yeah, I think sort of step one is exactly that. What is important to you? And so we have sort of a list of questions if you see are sort of how to choose a mattress page, it has kind of a full guide that sort of walks you through, but we can talk about some of those things. So one of the big ones is, you know, what position do you sleep in? If you are a stomach sleeper, you probably want something with a little bit more support, a little bit less sinkage, a little bit of a firmer feel. If you are a side sleeper, you want something that's a little bit softer, a little bit deeper sinkage. If you're a back sleeper, kind of somewhere in the middle.
So certainly knowing that's a big, big part of it. Most of us are combination sleepers, though, which means medium firm feel sort of moderate sinkage depth, deep sinkage, but nothing too extreme. That's going to work for most of us. So that kind of brings us into like the next question, which is just what firmness do you need? Again, most of us need a medium firm feel.
It's a good balance for most sleeping positions and works well for most sleepers. I think a lot of times you'll have people that for any number of reasons think they need something super soft or super firm. And sometimes that is true, but very often I would say, and more often I would say people sort of think that for sort of an erroneous reason, for lack of a better word, they may think they need something firm, but that's just because the mattresses they've been sleeping on are lower quality or just don't provide full support, or they may think they need something super soft because that's just where they get enough pressure relief. But again, that's just because they've been sleeping on a mattress that's older and the foams are degraded. And so there's no way for that mattress to possibly provide the pressure relief.
But once you get a new mattress with high quality materials and sort of inappropriate design, medium to medium firm fits the vast majority of sleepers. Beyond that, we get into some more specific things. For example, if you are over 250 pounds, but especially over 300, you probably want to go with an HD or plus size mattress, simply because those mattresses are tuned to support heavier weighted bodies, where most other mattresses are only going to be tuned to support up to around 300 pounds. You could also really think about your sort of specific needs and preferences. Like if you sleep with a partner who is moving around a lot, getting coming to bed late, getting up early, you might want something that intentionally has very low motion transfer just so that partners can not disturb each other and stay asleep.
If you're someone that sleeps super hot, you may want to pay a little bit extra for sort of a more advanced cooling cover because that's going to keep it cooler on the surface, it's going to let you stay asleep better, wake up less. And the last thing is just budget, how much to spend. For most of us, we can spend $1,500 to $2,000 based on sort of my years of testing and data. That's sort of the sweet spot before we start to see sort of diminishing returns. The performance doesn't really improve all that much. And in some cases, not at all depending on the specific model as you kind of get over $2,000. With very few exceptions, there's really just never a reason to spend more than $3,000 for a queen size. If you're getting like an adjustable mattress with the electron hair pumps, maybe if you want something super all natural, all organic, okay, maybe more than 3K. But for your sort of typical high quality memory foam, foam hybrid mattress, there's just no reason to spend more than that.
William Curb: Awesome. Yeah. And just curious, is memory foam kind of like the go-to now?
Derek Hales: No, I wouldn't say that. Memory foam is an interesting foam. There really is no sort of industry agreed upon definition of what memory foam is. Originally, it was a particular type of sort of foam formulation. And so you would see that on mattress law tags as visco elastic polyurethane foam. Now you'll see mattresses that are marketed as having and using memory foam that polyurethane foams. But they have more of that memory foam feel. So the way I think a memory foam is it's a foam that creates more hug around the body, more contour around the body. I think a lot of people like that feel, but there are some that really don't because that increase in body contouring hug, it can cause the mattress to have a slower mature recovery speed, which can make some sleepers feel more stuck in the mattress, make it harder to move around on, harder to change positions. So I wouldn't say memory foam is a perfect material best for everybody, but for the people that again like that hugging sensation, it can be great. But if that's not you, then you probably do want to try to avoid mattresses that contain more memory foam.
William Curb: Okay. Yeah, I'm loving this because normally a lot of the interviews I get, I'm like, oh, I know all these things. And here I'm like, there are so many things I just don't know here.
Derek Hales: It's a, the world of mattresses is a really deep and complex world once you really get digging into it. And I think this is among the reasons why it's really hard to shop for mattresses because there are so many brands and so many models within those brands that the mattresses quickly all start looking very similar. And unless you are sort of able to sort of take the mattresses apart like we're able to do in our lab here, it can be really hard to know just how these materials different and how the feels different.
And then even if you could understand that, which one you're actually going to like, at the end of the day, the best way to know what you like is laying on it for days and weeks and months to really understand how it feels. And so I just can understand sort of the pain of the shopping experience for kind of all these reasons.
William Curb: Yeah. I mean, it just seems there's so many things that I don't know about that I wouldn't even know to ask that it's great to have something to be like, oh, this is kind of the guide of how to get into it. Absolutely.
Derek Hales: Yeah. So we tried to make it as easy as possible. We break down our reviews from like the most high level, these are the scores, this is the top level summary. And then we get a little bit deeper, a little bit deeper, a little bit deeper. And by the end, we're getting into really nitty-gritty details that maybe not everybody needs or wants, but hey, if you want to sort of see our work, if you want to go deep dive into everything in the world of mattresses, we've got that there. Or if you just want to be able to say, click on, hey, here's our list for the best, smash it for side sleepers. All right, here's some great choices. If you go with one of these, you're probably going to have a perfect time. Yeah.
William Curb: I know when I ever do online research, I'll bring up like 15 top 10 lists and be like, what's common among these lists? I'm kind of curious too. So you were talking about like marketing speak earlier. Are there are some of these claims or kind of like gimmicks that you're seeing that people might want to avoid? Yeah.
Derek Hales: I mean, I think there are erroneous claims, marketing speak and gimmicks practically everywhere you look. And so sort of it's hard to avoid them because they're everywhere. They're ubiquitous across effectively all brands. And so I think you have to just understand that the things that a mattress brand says about themselves aren't always 100% true or maybe they're just obfuscating certain information.
Every brand from brands that are $100 to brands that are $10,000, talk about how cool the mattress is. That can't be universally true. It just, it can't be true. And it's not.
And so I think when you see lots of hyperbole around really kind of any particular feature, just sort of take it with a grain of salt. Understand that, yes, this particular brand may have a cooling cover. Yes, it may use phase change materials. And that may be the exact same thing as another more expensive brand that also uses phase change materials and has a cooling cover. But what makes it so difficult is just because they both have cooling covers, doesn't mean they're the same quality. Just because they both have phase change materials, doesn't mean they're the same type or quality of phase change.
And it doesn't mean they're the same quantity. And so when we look at something like cooling, we have to have enough of the cooling material and a cooling material at a sufficient quality level to really make a notable impact. Otherwise, it may be truthful for that brand to say, hey, we got a cooling cover and gel foam and phase change and thermo fibers. That all may be true, but they may just like not have enough of it in the mattress to be sort of meaningfully moving that needle in terms of cooling. And that kind of applies to kind of everything that consumers care about in the world of mattresses. So it could be as it's really challenging to know what is sort of real information about that product and what's more sort of hyperbolic marketing speak.
William Curb: Yeah, because it's just making me think of an old marketing example I heard of some company that was advertising that they steam cleaned their bottles and it was just like, yeah, everyone does that. That's market standard. But by advertising, it made it seem like they were so good.
Derek Hales: Yeah, that sort of reminds me of one during COVID, we had brands that started marking themselves as no contact delivery, which just means that UPS dropped the mattress off in a box at your door and then walked away, which is what they were always doing and what they're still doing. But they marketed it as no contact like, oh my goodness, yeah, that's wonderful.
William Curb: Yeah, I've definitely seen some great videos of people opening up those really sealed mattresses and them just popping out because they're not expecting it.
Derek Hales: Yeah, they hit my feet for some reason. This week, I had people sending me multiple of those. Some of those people, I'm really worried that they might have gotten hurt though, especially older people or little kids. I saw one where a guy had his leg in the middle of the frame and he was opening it midframe and knocked him back off the frame, but his leg was just like, oh my goodness, this man just break a leg.
William Curb: And they're often holding some sharp implement and it's just like, this is so dangerous.
Derek Hales: Yes, exactly.
William Curb: I think maybe we might want to change directions a little bit because we also talked earlier about before the interview about It's kind of sleep optimization things beyond mattresses.
Derek Hales: So my ideas aren't really, my ideas are just things that I've read in clinical studies and journals and reports on this by actual sleep scientists. Well I know a lot about mattresses, I'm not a sleep scientist, but the science behind this in the studies is pretty clear. I think two big things that we can do, aside from getting a great mattress. Number one, make the room dark. When rooms are darker, you are able to get to sleep quicker, stay asleep longer, longer rim cycles, and just wake up more refreshed. And so do everything you can to make the room as dark as possible. So shades, blinds, little covers kind of underneath the door. If you've got lights that are penetrating in from hallways.
If you're able to sleep comfortably in a sleep mask, that's a great way to get away with it as well. And then turning off any extra lights, putting your phone either in another room or face down so that if you're getting notifications, it's not lighting up your room every time it goes off. Even certain alarm clocks I find can add a lot of light to the room. So do everything you can to make the room as dark as possible. And then kind of on a similar front, make the room as quiet as possible. So likewise, if you're able to, again, heavy curtains can help prevent a noise from coming in from outside. Close your door, you know, thing under the door so we're preventing noise from coming in outside. Also, if you're able to sleep with a set of earplugs, that's going to reduce you anywhere from 20 to 30 decibels a night. And again, it's just it's all aimed at preventing nighttime awakening so that when sounds happen in the night, they aren't pulling you out of REM, causing you to then be slightly awake for several minutes before we kind of go back to sleep.
And so over the years, you know, we've just seen kind of countless studies that just show again and again and again, dark rooms and quiet rooms. If you can do those two things, you will find yourself getting much better sleep, more restorative sleep and longer sleep as well.
William Curb: And it's hilarious that that comes off as a recommendation because it's just like if you were like trying to take a nap or something, you'd be like, obviously, I want it to be quite and dark. But I know so many people have trouble doing that in their bedroom and making it a very sleep zone.
Derek Hales: Yeah, it's one of those things that again, it's so obvious, but it's also really easy to let there be problems. You know, my wife had an alarm clock that we were using for years and years and years. And at some point, I just sort of like thought I mean, like I was looking up at just kind at the wall and I was thinking, my God, what is that? And it was just like this radiant alarm clock or like my phone, every time I get a notification, you know, it's, you know, lighting up the entire room. But just turning that face down, you know, turning the brightness down on the alarm clock, small changes, you know, can make a big difference in these areas.
William Curb: Yeah. And it's often, yeah, not something that needs to be like super extreme because I've like noticed was like, oh, yes, it needs to be dark enough room that when you close your eyes, you that you couldn't would never be able to see with your eyes closed. It's not so much of a problem.
Derek Hales: Exactly. Exactly. And it's one of the things darker is better, but you know, get it dark to your comfort. And if you if there's just no way for you to kind of fully control that light and the noise, definitely consider consider the earplugs, consider the sleep mask, because those that are, you know, cover a multitude of problems very easily.
William Curb: So beyond that, I know there's all sorts of like options with like sheets and pillows and like weighted blankets and all that kind of stuff. Kind of where does that come in?
Derek Hales: So it's all it's all a factor, right? If we have an amazing mattress, but then a set of sheets isn't breath particularly well, or isn't very soft, well, that may make your mattress feel warmer. Because it's not the fault of the mattress, it's just you have sheets that aren't breathing well. So certainly with respect to the cooling, softness and feel, you know, get a getting nice set of sheets. So I really like these sort of, you know, high performance polyester, the sheets that the sheets and in bed gear make, they are kind of like a Nike dry fit type materials.
So it's like workout material, super smooth, incredibly moisture wicking, cool and breathable. So they just do an amazing job when it comes to cooling. Master, Master's protectors is another one of those sort of unsung heroes for similar reasons. If you have a really nice cooling mattress, but then you put a cheap Master's protector on it, well, then you may find that your mattress is just not breathing well. So spending a decent amount of money to get a quality protector that both protects, but also breathes well is really important. The protector is like another one that is again, kind of the unsung hero. We have people often think of, you know, one that won't protect their mattress, but they want to sleep cool.
And like I said, but the protector does more than I think, equally importantly, a protector is also preventing moisture from getting into your mattress. So the human body sort of loses anywhere from half a liter to a liter of moisture every night. A lot of that's just coming off through, you know, perspiration and through, you know, breathing. But some of that is just oils and liquid getting down into the mattress. If you don't have a protector, that's just getting into the mattress. And over time, that quickly builds up and can make the mattress form body impressions and sag much more quickly and much deeper. So a lot of times, you know, I'll have readers kind of being to say, oh, I've only had this mattress a few years, and it's already sagging. One of my first questions I ask is, well, are you using a Master's protector? Because without that, yeah, you're going to get sagging and body impressions a lot faster.
So it's definitely worth it to one, definitely use a protector and, you know, spend a decent amount of money so we can get something that's going to last, be cool, and also really protect that bed.
William Curb: Yeah, I can definitely see that because, yeah, everything you were just saying, like it's all builds up. And if you're not, it's just the like the general maintenance we have to do on everything. Exactly, yeah. And so this is making me think, though. So I've heard things about like rotating your mattress and, you know, how long a mattress should last. What's kind of the truth in that stuff?
Derek Hales: In terms of how long mattresses should last, I think a quality mattress should last around 10 years, sometimes a little less, sometimes a little more, depending on, you know, body type, environmental factors, bed frames, whether or not you use a protector, those sorts of things. In terms of rotating the mattress, definitely rotating the mattress helps the mattress wear more evenly. So I think there's, you see a lot of brands sort of complicate this for any number of reasons, but as long as you are rotating the mattress on a consistent schedule, if you rotate once a week, once a month, once a quarter, that's fine. I think for most new mattresses, I always advise rotating at the six month mark and then after that every 12 months. If you want to rotate more often than that, that's no problem. Just make sure that you're consistent with your rotation schedule. That way it's getting the same amount of sort of even wear across the mattress.
William Curb: How do you even know when a mattress needs to be replaced?
Derek Hales: I think the thing I always say is, how are you sleeping? Are you waking up sore? Are you waking up in pains? Do you have low energy during the day? Are you waking up tired? If that's happening to you, it could be the mattress.
This is to say that there are other things that could cause this. There absolutely are, but we should consider is the mattress part of the play? When you go sleep at a relative's house, a friend's house, when you sleep at a hotel, are you sleeping better? Are you sleeping differently? Because those are indicators that something's going on with your specific mattress and then it's probably time to upgrade.
William Curb: That makes sense. I'm a friend with that very fancy eight-sleep bed. He was visiting me. He's just like, I really love my bed. The worst thing about it is that it does not travel with me.
Derek Hales: Yeah, I felt that pain. My own father. I told him I will send him a mattress for his guest bedroom if he would just let me. He will not let me, but yeah, he has an awful, awful mattress and then the guest room. I was just like, I'll just sleep on the couch, Dad.
William Curb: Yeah, I was having some, we were trying to put together a guest room thing and I'm just like, I don't know how much I want to put into the guest room versus guests that are comfortable, but I don't want to break the bank on the guest room.
Derek Hales: Yeah, and unfortunately, you don't really need to. I think there are a good number of really quality, 800 to $1,000 mattresses that are a good balance feel for guests. Since it's a guest bed, it's not getting nightly use. That mattress, which should be lasting 10 years, is probably going to go 20 or more. You don't need to definitely break the bank to get something that'll last a long time.
William Curb: Yeah, I was also trying to do it in a week where it's like, when that friend was visiting, I'm like, I've got to figure this out in this week and it did not happen. So he did not get a good bed. But it is one of those things where that's... Have you finished your guest room yet?
No, not even close. That was just like, well, he's gone and I'm not expecting guests for a month, so we're just shoving this off. Hey, fair. It is very ADHD. And one of the things that's why I was like, oh, this is a great option for this podcast.
It's because people with ADHD have so much trouble with sleep in general. So it did was I was like, oh, this makes... I'll be quite honest, when I first saw the email, like a mattress review, why would I have that on? And then I thought about it, like, oh, that makes a ton of sense. There's a ton of people that have need this service.
Derek Hales: Absolutely. It's interesting. So you remark, increased sleeping problems with ADHD. Do you think that is more just sort of unable to turn the brain off when you're ready for sleep? Or is there something else kind of going on there physiologically?
William Curb: There's a number of things. Yeah, there is definitely turning the brain off for sleep. There is some research into like, circadian rhythm delay that shows that's like, oh, yeah, you have... You're just not on the same schedule as everyone, and that makes it a lot harder to fall asleep. Yeah.
Derek Hales: Yeah. What would you say is sort of your typical sort of circadian rhythm schedule? Are you more of a night owl or compressed sleep time or elongated sleep time?
William Curb: I would probably be a little bit later going to bed if I didn't have kids that I needed to get to school in the morning.
Derek Hales: Yes, man. I feel that in my soul.
William Curb: Next year, my daughter is switching to middle school, and their schedule is an hour earlier. And I'm just like, I'm gonna have to do this, but an hour earlier. Good luck. My goodness. This is not gonna go well for me. But what... That's one of the issues is just like, yeah, you can't just not do it.
Derek Hales: Yeah. Our world is not built for night owls or anybody else that wants to go to bed closer to midnight.
William Curb: Yeah. And I guess that is part of the... When we were talking about optimization, it's like, yeah, figuring out when you sleep best. Yeah.
Derek Hales: And it's interesting. I'm naturally more of a night owl, sort of. I would much rather kind of go to bed at midnight and wake up around nine or so. But I also have kids that just kind of live in a world in which it's just not possible. So as I've gotten a little bit older, my kids have gotten a little bit older. Yeah, I just naturally kind of wake up a little bit earlier, go to bed a little bit earlier as well, just because it's just the way our family kind of functions right now.
And you kind of... You gotta get on that ship, or you can kick and scream and be punished the whole way if you decide not to. But it's been a lot easier for me just to try to adjust my schedule a couple of hours earlier. Yeah.
William Curb: And we were also talking about this beforehand with the daylight savings switch that just hit. And that's... Which you luckily don't have to deal with. But... Yes. It's one of those things where a lot of times it doesn't feel like it should be such a big deal. But changing your bedtime by an hour on a drop of a hat is very difficult. Yeah.
Derek Hales: I never really considered it sort of growing up. I lived in places that had daylight savings times. I was an adult out of college by the time I lived in Arizona when we don't have it out here. But yeah, I mean, the notion that I would just all of a sudden wake up an hour earlier or go to bed an hour later seems like crazy now. I got about a 30-minute window. I got about 30 minutes on either side of kind of like 11 o'clock. But having to go to bed at an hour in any direction would be a hard, hard switch. I've made those decisions before, but it's usually it takes months to really get adjusted. Yeah.
William Curb: And I think that's one of the things that people often forget is that it feels... I've talked to people this week that they're like, oh, yeah, and I'll be back on schedule in a couple of days. I'm like, not really. Now, that takes time.
Yeah. And it's because it feels different than travel because I know I'm gonna have a trip next week where I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm gonna be an hour different. But that's not gonna be... I'm only there for three days. This is a permanent change for me otherwise. Yeah.
Derek Hales: Just suffering for a couple of days during travel with jet lag is... It's not nothing, but yeah, I feel like I can kind of... I push through like as mentally I know that's not my schedule. It may be nine o'clock there, but I'm thinking, oh, in my time, and so you kind of adjust accordingly, but yeah, it never feels as bad as what the daylight savings can feel like. Yeah.
William Curb: The only time I really had a lot of trouble with jet lag is I took a trip to Japan when I was in my teens and I'm like, that can't just brush that off. Yeah, no kidding. We've gone through a lot of stuff here. And I'm just wondering if there's any other topics you think that would be good to hit before we wrap up?
Derek Hales: I think we've covered a lot. We talked about job and fare mattresses, things that are important, sleep optimization, of course, make it dark, make it quiet. Those are by far the biggest. We talked a little bit about sort of bedding selections and we talked to you about protectors and sheets, giving us that's its quality and cooling. One thing we haven't really talked about much is sort of pillows and bed frames.
We could briefly touch on that. So pillows, just how we want a mattress to match your sleep position. If you're a side sleeper, that means maybe more like a medium feel, a little bit deeper sinkage. If you're a stomach sleeper, a little bit less, a little bit more firmness. It's kind of the same thing with pillows.
We want to match our position. If you're a stomach sleeper, get something that is not as tall. The whole idea with that is that tall pillows push the spine and more into a curvature because your head, your shoulders are sort of leaning more up, creating this curvature of the spine. So we want the stomach sleeper pillow to be as flat as possible so that the curve of the spine is as flat as possible, which is going to reduce pressure points and just create better comfort and support. Back sleepers want a medium height because we need to sort of raise the head sort of up into a supported position, but we don't want to go too high because then now the head is sort of, you know, cranks, sort of, you know, too far forward and out of alignment with the rest of the body. And then lastly, side sleepers need the tallest pillows. The taller pillow, you know, sort of fills the void between the head, the neck, and the shoulder. Again, all aimed at creating a neutral spinal alignment.
When we can create more of a neutral spinal alignment, you've just got fewer pressure points, better support, and better overall comfort. The last thing I would, you know, suggest, you know, spending a little bit more money on is a nice bed frame. Nice thing about a bed frame is you don't have to buy it, you know, every time you get into mattress.
You know, these could last, you know, decades if you get a nice one. And the reason the bed frame is so important is because it's supporting the mattress. And so sometimes we'll see, you know, people that will have mattresses that sag much earlier than they should, form body impressions much earlier than they should. If the bed frame is not creating sufficient support for that mattress, that's when we see deeper sagging earlier sagging. And so it becomes really like a longevity protector for your mattress if you get a nicer frame and foundation. So the sort of closer your frame foundation can look to a solid platform surface, the better. When we see slat frames causing problems, it's because the slats are too far apart, or they're not wide enough, or they're more flexible, they're bowed, they're not creating rigid support, and or they lack sort of that central sort of support beam. Any of these things can basically let more of sort of the mattress sort of sink down between those slat gaps.
And that's what, you know, sort of exacerbates the sagging and body impressions. So definitely don't let sort of the other things around and under the mattress, you know, sort of go by the waist side. The, whether you're talking frames, pillows, sheets, protectors, these are all super important to making sure that you feel supported. The mattress lasts a long time. And you're sort of maximizing the performance of the mattress in terms of cooling. Yeah.
William Curb: And I got to, I was just thinking of the old bed frame I had before we had gotten the current one was this janky metal frame that I got off of some company on Amazon that, you know, had some like weird names, was clearly like some Chinese dropshipping thing. And I was just like, the, it didn't matter that our mattress had almost no movement, that frame just would like shake back and forth. Yeah.
Derek Hales: Absolutely. Yeah. And motion transfer, noise, support, like the frame is doing a lot more than just sort of looking pretty. I think a lot of people just choose the frame just because they like the aesthetic and something we're wrong.
As somebody who likes a stylish bed frame, it's absolutely important to get that piece of it as well, but we don't want to miss the functionality part because that is just going to determine again, overall performance and longevity of your mattress. Yeah.
William Curb: And it is funny was the current one that had the slight problem that it has like little like, it's nice wood frame and has like little wings at the end. And I would just crank my leg into them when I woke up in the night to go to the bathroom or got up in the morning. I eventually just like put like some little like glow in the dark stickers on it. And then like, they're not bright enough that I can see them at night, but they're definitely, I'm like, oh, there's a little bit of a glow there. Yeah.
Derek Hales: Yeah. That's smart. That's a great idea. Yeah.
William Curb: All right. Well, I guess we're coming up on time here. So do you have any final thoughts you want to leave the audience with?
Derek Hales: Hey, if you're interested in our work, be sure to visit us at naplab.com. That's NAPLAB.com. You can find our reviews, comparisons, best of guides, educational material and a whole lot more.
We also have our mattress finder quiz there. Answer a few questions about your needs and preferences. That goes straight to me or member of my team. And we send you back a personalized recommendation within 24 hours.
William Curb: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time. There's a ton of stuff in there.
Derek Hales: Thank you for having me.
William Curb: Thanks again to Derek for coming on the show and thank you for sticking with us all the way to the end. Before you go, though, let's do a quick rundown of today's top tips.
One: ADHD brains can have even more trouble filtering out background stimuli, such as lights and sounds in the bedroom, which can make it even harder for us to fall asleep. Things like blackout shades and earplugs can create an environment that's more conductive to getting more restful and restorative sleep.
Two, your body's ability to shed heat is a biological requirement for deep sleep. To help with this cooling, look for materials that actually facilitate moisture wicking and airflow rather than just relying on stuff that has surface level cooled to the touch feel.
Three, a lot of marketing from the mattress industry often uses a more expensive equals better sleep bottle, pressuring us to spend more and more on mattresses. Derek suggests a $1,500 to $2,000 price range as the performance peak where the highest quality materials are used and you get the most bang for your buck. Of course, with every mattress, your mileage is going to vary, so make sure you do your research, which hopefully you might have found a place to do that at.
Anyways, that's it. Thanks for listening. I'd love to hear what you thought of this episode and honestly would really love some feedback on this one since it's a bit out of range of what I usually do. Feel free to connect with me over at hackingyouradhd.com.
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