We put on clean underwear and socks every day, change our clothes every few days, but often forget about the bed sheet. A timely change of bed sheet is as important a hygienic procedure as taking a shower and brushing your teeth because we spend much time in bed and contact the sheet with bare skin. The sheets and pillowcases accumulate sweat and particles of our skin, which create a favorable breeding ground for dust mites, bacteria, and fungus.
How often do I need to change my bed sheet at home?
The question “how often do you change the bed” often leads people to embellish the reality. We always embarrass ourselves to admit that we can’t wash before bed, eat fast food, and sleep in the same underwear for several weeks.
Recommendation to change your once every two weeks or more often.
Often people do not change their bed sheet promptly because they do not know how important it is for their health. Dirty laundry becomes an excellent habitat for mold, fungus, bacteria, and dust mites. The consequences of this can be an allergy, which will manifest itself as sneezing, nasal congestion, lacrimation, swelling. In some cases, asthma, dermatitis, eczema, acute viral diseases may occur. In addition to the harm to health, the hygienic aspect is also important because sleeping on fresh, delicious-smelling underwear is much more pleasant.
Remember that great feeling when you first lie down in a clean bed. It will motivate you to change your bed sheet frequently. In addition, you can involve the whole family in this process and spend time not only usefully, but also fun.
How long can you sleep on the bed sheet, depending on the time of year?
At different times of the year, other biological processes occur in the human body. In addition, our apartments and houses have different temperatures and humidity, which depends on the heating season.
Summer
In the summer, we often leave the windows open, accumulating pollen from plants, poplar fluff, and dust in the bedroom. Suppose you live in a warm and humid climate. In that case, it is necessary to ventilate the sheets, pillows, and blankets regularly. In addition to the sweat that is released during sleep, they accumulate moisture from the surrounding space. It is recommended to change bed sheets in the summer more often than the usual one time a week. If it is very hot outside, and there is no air conditioning, it is optimal to change the sheet more often – 1 time in 4-5 days.
Autumn
In autumn, the number of rain increases, and the concentration of dust in the air decreases. When it is already cold outside, and the central heating has not yet been turned on, the transition from autumn to winter puts our body into heat preservation mode, which reduces sweating. In autumn, you can change the bed sheet 1 time in 2 weeks.
Winter
In winter, not only nature but also man goes into a kind of hibernation. All metabolic processes slow down. In such conditions, the body sweats much less during a night’s rest. Other factors of rapid contamination of laundries, such as high humidity and plant particles, are also absent in winter. Therefore, the optimal frequency of bed renewal is 1 time in 2 weeks.
Spring
In the spring, plants, insects, and seasonal allergies are awakened. Pollen, not visible to the eyes, hovers in the air, settling on all surfaces. For people prone to allergic reactions, it is better to change clothes during the active flowering period as often as possible – 1 time in 5 days.
What else is essential to know about bedroom hygiene?
In addition to regular washing of bed sheet, it is essential to remember the cleanliness of other sleeping accessories. So that the mattress does not get dirty so quickly, it is more convenient to use a mattress pad, which is easy to wash in a washing machine. You can clean the mattress itself with a vacuum cleaner or a weak soap solution. When choosing a wet cleaning, it is important not to make the bed immediately but to let it dry completely.
If you use pillows and blankets made of soft fillers such as silk, goose down, or cashmere, you will need dry cleaning services. Many wool fillers, bamboo, eucalyptus, and synthetic materials tolerate machine washing well. Follow the instructions on the label because it is important to wash blankets and pillows at a specific temperature not to spoil the filler.
After washing, do not hang them on the dryer, but lay them out on a flat, horizontal surface. So the filler will not gather in lumps and will dry faster.
In what cases is it recommended to change the bed sheet more often than usual?
We offer a small test to determine how often you need to change your bed sheet.
So, if you answered positively to at least one statement, we recommend updating the bed once every 5-7 days if do you:
- Have pets that sleep with you;
- Often eat in bed while watching TV shows;
- Have oily skin or excessive sweating;
- Tend to allergies or colds;
- You sleep without your clothes on;
- You don’t cover the bed with a blanket or fold the sofa.
There are cases when bed sheet needs to be changed, even if it was used only once:
- If guests stayed overnight, be sure to wash the kit they slept on.;
- If you feel that you have recovered from a cold or flu. Bacteria left on the pillow can trigger a new round of the disease;
- If you did a large-scale rearrangement or drilled the walls.
How do you know when it’s time to change your bed sheet?
If you make your bed, eat only in the kitchen, and don’t allow pets in the bedroom, you may still need to change your bed sheet more often due to your body characteristics. A few signs that the bed sheet should be replaced:
You do not suffer from allergies, but you feel nasal congestion, which passes within a few minutes after lifting. If you notice this symptom, change the bedding set. Most likely, much dust has accumulated on it. If the change did not help, pay attention to the laundry conditioner that you use – perhaps its smell is too strong or stuffy.
Important! We recommend washing your bed sheet without air conditioning or using it very little. The smell of cleanliness from the pillow is much more pleasant and useful than the persistent aroma of Lenore.
- You have developed pimples or irritation on your skin. In people with sensitive skin, this reaction occurs especially often in the summer, when the body sweats more than usual during sleep.
- You have developed headaches that go away soon after waking up. The reason for this is also the dust that you inhale from the pillow during the night. If you feel discomfort in the neck in addition to the headache, it is most likely the wrong pillow.
Is there a relationship between the material of the bed sheet and the frequency of its replacement?
Of course, yes. Bed sets made of natural cotton perfectly absorb moisture and dry quickly, unlike synthetic fabrics. During sleep on synthetic body sweats more, I give you discomfort. We recommend that you choose only natural materials to allow your skin to breathe freely.
Modern manufacturers offer a large selection of fabrics created on a cotton basis, from inexpensive to elite. These are:
- satin
- poplin
- calico
- percale
- jacquard
- rainforest
- jersey knitwear and others.
There is also bamboo and eucalyptus bedding. Both plants are natural antiseptics, and eucalyptus essential oils have a healing effect. If you do not like the process of changing bed sheet, and you want to do it as rarely as possible, we recommend that you pay attention to bamboo and eucalyptus.
The material also determines the washing of the laundry. Cotton is washed at high temperatures without fear of shrinkage. Washing at 60 degrees is the optimal temperature and contributes to destroying bacteria and dust mite larvae. For bamboo, you need a delicate mode and a temperature of no more than 30 degrees. Synthetic materials can not be washed in hot water to avoid their deformation.