Healthy mattresses,
Healthy beds,
Let's consider and talk about this.
My name is Dylan Smith.
I'm an Ayurvedic practitioner and holistic health educator who sees patients for many,
Many different conditions,
Dynamic array of treatments and dynamic array of intentions for health.
And the number one thing which we got to assess is sleep.
How are you going to heal or overcome any imbalance or any disease without optimizing sleep?
Now,
You may listening to this,
Yeah,
I'm talking to you on Insight Timer.
You may know this and you may attend to your sleep,
But a lot of people,
They actually neglect their actual mattress.
What are you actually sleeping on?
What are you breathing your head on every day for,
What,
A third of your life or something like that?
We spend a third of our lives in our bedroom.
And this Insight Timer track is not to be an alarmist about,
Oh,
You're sleeping on a chemical.
No,
It's to empower you.
And I'm coming with solutions.
The bed is such a dynamic environment,
Our body temperature regulates the chemical compounds in us.
We sleep on it,
We have sex on it,
We read books on it,
We watch movies.
It may seem a bit out of the question for you,
But there are certain things you can do to move in this direction of optimizing the thing that you spend a third of your life on.
So let's just have a quick look at standard and commercial mattresses.
The reality is there's a lot of petrochemically derived chemicals.
There's certain chemicals like polyurethane,
Which creates the foam in mattresses.
There's synthetic toxins coming from crude oil.
There's flame retardants and rightly so.
We don't want the mattress to get on fire and the kids to get on fire if there's a fire in the house,
But they are toxic and there are other natural materials like wool,
Which has a high combustion and which are natural flame retardants rather than the toxic ones which kids are breathing into their poor,
Vulnerable respiratory tracts.
Now the thing with bed ingredients and toxins are everywhere,
That's true,
But it's about the bioaccumulation of toxins,
A little bit here,
A little bit there,
But when you're breathing in for a third of your life,
It's going to contribute to the inevitable amount of toxins that are in your life and we want to reduce it.
So we can go through all the different ingredients,
But point is most conventional ones are definitely mostly petrochemically derived and they are toxic.
So especially if you've got babies or children,
Without the sophisticated nostril filtration that adults have,
This is going to be a long-term exposure of carcinogens and you're not only breathing it,
You're transdermally absorbing it through your skin.
So transdermal infiltration of whether it's chemicals or it's medicines.
In Ayurveda,
We're a big fan of giving medicines through the skin and on the contrary side,
We don't want to be having toxins a lot on your skin.
So what's the solution?
Well,
There's a lot of good mattress companies out there and it's definitely an investment,
But it's an investment for long-term and if you really go with a wood healthy mattress,
It is investing in your sleep,
It's investing in your nest,
It's such an innate primal place for you to go back and regenerate every single night.
So you want to look for certain certifications on the mattress.
You also want to speak to the mattress dealer and how much are they in relation with where the materials are harvested and produced.
I did a lot of research on mattress companies and you can really find the companies where the owners and the people working there have knowing it from plant to mattress.
They're knowing the whole process and what goes into it.
So you want a minimum of 95% organic.
You can even get higher than organic.
There's certain certifications like GOTS,
Which is GOTS and there's also GOALS.
GOALS is for latex.
So we're going to speak about latex a bit because latex is my favorite material for mattress and GOALS stands for Global Organic Latex Standard and the GOTS is the Global Organic Textile Standard and these certifications are really important.
They're derived from absolutely clean 100% latex if it's the GOALS and if it's GOTS,
You're getting good quality organic cotton,
Wool,
Latex because by the way,
Cotton is the dirtiest crop.
It's one of the dirtiest crop on earth.
It is full of chemicals.
It is full of a chemical called dioxin,
Which disrupts hormones,
Particularly for females but for many things.
So we really want to favor the organic materials that we are putting on our skin every day and that we're breathing every day and especially on our bed that we are spending a third of our life.
The standard addresses criteria for natural rubber from certified organic plantation and to achieve a GOALS certification,
A product must contain more than 95% of organic raw material.
So still some people,
They'll mix it with polyurethane or some mold resistant toxins but also plant-based is a deceptive term so really I encourage you speaking with the mattress company and getting to know them more.
Another thing I want to just mention is indoor air and opening the window.
It's so important to have proper air circulation.
If your indoor air has 10 times more volatile organic compounds than when you're outside and that is another nighttime toxin that you breathe in.
So there's a lot of different standards.
There's the OEKO Tex 100,
Which is a standard 100 for the world's best standard textiles.
It's an independent third party.
That's OEKO Tex 100.
There's the Green Guard Gold,
Which is certified for VOCs.
There's chemical adhesives which you need to be aware of.
Overall,
Industry can be corrupt and you don't want to go solely based on these standards and these certifications.
They help.
You just want to speak to the person and know what to ask.
So what do you ask for?
We want to ask for good quality latex in the mattress and we want to know how much latex is there and are there chemicals used in the latex extraction process.
Some there are,
But what chemicals and you want to be looking for minimal chemical use in extracting the latex and turning it into a mattress.
So I hope this helps the short thing of even just bringing awareness to the mattress and definitely there are many companies that are prioritizing and marketing and selling healthy mattresses.
Not all of them are as pure and as healthy and as clean as they say,
But you can read about them and investigate and just check their connection with the source and how involved are they in the process from plant to manufacture to finish product.
So I hope that helps and I hope that is a contributing factor to ditch conventional mattresses and move more towards a healthy organic bed.
I've got other resources on Insight Timer about sleep.
I've got a course coming up or it may already be out by the time you're listening on creating a healthy and conscious sleep routine and optimizing sleep,
All about optimizing sleep.
I've got a premium track on Insight Timer of some practices to do to optimize your sleep because in Ayurvedic medicine,
We say one of the indicators for health is proper sleep.
Like people ask,
What actually is health?
Am I,
Apparently I'm healthy,
But actually what does it mean to be healthy?
There's a big clear definition in Ayurveda of what it means to be healthy and one of those definitions is when you go to bed at night,
You basically fall asleep straight away.
Within one to two minutes,
You fall asleep and you stay asleep throughout the whole night.
Not even wake up once to urinate and when you wake up in the morning,
You basically want to jump out of bed with enthusiastic energy and feel absolutely regenerated,
Ready to take on the day.
That is something which we all deserve and we all have the birthright to have proper regenerative sleep.
I've got Insight Timer resources on that.
Okay guys,
I hope this helps.
If you have any questions,
I'm sure there are on specifics on the mattresses and the healthy beds.
Please leave a comment below and I will respond there.
I love to have this discussion and continue this in the comments and let's enhance our sophistication of what we have around us in our life and it's not being too rigid or particular or complex but it's an elegant sophistication of bringing clean and healthy products and furniture into our life.
Much love.
