Sleep is one of the things that we care most about here at M2. At first, the connection between sleep and nutrition might not seem so obvious, but here are some interesting links:
1) A lack of appropriate sleep can increase cravings by upwards of 25% in just two nights
2) No surprise then that a lack of quality sleep is correlated with a significant increase in calorie consumption
3) If you're trying to lose weight and not sleeping enough, you end up losing more MUSCLE than you do body fat
All of these are reasons enough to take sleep seriously, but should you need more convincing a lack of sleep is correlated negatively with most of the severe diseases you are looking to avoid such as heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.
Lastly, if you're an athlete and not sleeping 8 hours a night, you are severely reducing your ability to perform.
So, if someone is looking to improve health, body composition, or performance, we need to think about sleep.
While the total hours we sleep is a critical metric, the quality of the sleep we get is also vital. Some might argue that 6.5 hours of quality uninterrupted sleep is better than 8.5 hours with 4-5 wake-ups.
How can we improve the quality of our sleep?? Of course, things like nutrition and stress reduction help, but one area to focus on is the sleep environment. For the body to fall into a nice, deep sleep, it needs to cool down about 2-3 degrees. You can, of course, use your home's thermostat to try and control this, but recently, a new approach involving active cooling mattress pads has become all the rage.
As someone constantly trying to improve my health and the health of others, I wanted to test this whole thing out. After doing a little bit of market research, there were two products that we're worth demoing:
The Eight Sleep system and the ChiliPad
The Chili Pad
Let's start with a review of the ChiliPad. Spoiler alert: I never really warmed up to it (see what I did there??).
The ChiliPad website offers a few different options for cooling pad products ranging from ~$550 to $1900, depending upon which version you buy and the size of your bed. At the time of my purchase, the most advanced option was their OOLER sleep system.
ChiliPad Pros
- Setup is pretty simple/fast as there were just a few simple elastic cords wrapped underneath the mattress to try and keep the cooling pad in place.
- Water is poured directly into a small port at the top, and before you know it, you're ready to start using the product.
- It cools the bed RAPIDLY and can take the temperature down to a pretty low level.
I did sleep better, but...
ChiliPad Cons
- The pad itself was not very comfortable as a side sleeper, and I could feel the small coils through the pad/sheet.
- I consistently had to reposition the pad as it would get bunched up on one side due to some of my tossing and turning.
- The small hole for pouring water was… well, too small and the total volume the system held meant that I was refilling the system on a very consistent basis.
- Also, with the less advanced systems that ChiliSleep offers, if the system deems too little water is in the pad, it simply shuts off.
- Frustrating.
They recommend completely emptying the water reservoir once a month and using a special cleaning product to prevent anything from growing there.
This is a bit clunky and annoying, enough that I forgot to do it a few times. To be clear, you have to buy the cleaning product from ChiliSleep itself.
Overall, I was not impressed with the system. Yes, it did cool me down for sleep, but the lack of comfort from the mattress topper and its tendency to bunch was really frustrating.
The Eight Sleep System
Eight sleep has fewer total options to choose from. They basically only sell a full-on Mattress with their cooling system already integrated or a Pod Pro Cover that can fit on top of the mattress you already own.
Since I love my bed, I went with the cover. The price of this product is comparable to the top-end product from ChiliSleep.
Eight Sleep Pros
- I could immediately tell this system would be sturdier and more advanced than the ChiliSleep pad. The mattress cover is attached using two separate components, the first of which you shackle to your bed in two directions, and the second piece zippers on top of it. Once in place, this thing isn't going anywhere.
- It is extremely comfortable, and you do not feel any of the water ducts/vessels running through the pad.
- The water filling system is nicer as it detaches from the rest of the base, allowing you to fill it in anywhere you want.
- Cleaning the system is a constant process as you add 3% hydrogen peroxide each time you fill the system up. I thought that was a nice touch.
- Much personalization goes into the App, which is used to control the system. I was able to set different temperatures for various parts of the night. There's also an "autopilot" mode that does everything for you if you'd rather not think about it.
- The pod has a vibrating alarm that is a joy to wake up to than a regular alarm.
- The App's biofeedback each morning around sleep quality, resting HR, etc, is fun and helpful. I can already see some patterns in the results like workout times, food quality, etc.
Eight Sleep Cons
- The only negative is that the App was not as intuitive as I would have liked. It took me a few days to figure out what I could adjust and dial the temperature changes in the way I wanted them.
THE VERDICT
At the end of the day, the Eight Sleep system was the clear winner in my book. It outperformed the ChiliPad system in pretty much every single way, from comfort, to ease of use, and ultimately generated a better night of sleep which is all that matters.
We will continue to review the Eight Sleep system for the next few months to help you understand how it can (or maybe cannot) lead to better health and fitness.
If you're already convinced and want to give the Eight Sleep system a try, follow this link and use the code "M2PN" at check-out to knock a little off the price.