- Sweat, dead skin, body fluids, dust, pollen... build upon our sheets over time.
- The Simple Technique To Get Rid Of Negative Thoughts Before Bed, According To An Expert.
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| Changing the sheets often can help us get a good night's sleep. / Pexels |
There is surprisingly little consensus on how often bed sheets should be changed. Demographics play a big role here: for example, one study found that half of single UK men can go more than four weeks without washing them.
The truth is that this is an important issue. As pleasant or unpleasant as this information may sound, the reality is that not washing your sheets often enough can have serious health implications.
Risk of allergies and infections
When we sleep, we sweat. We lose dead skin cells. We also salivate, and, especially if we have sex in bed (although not only in this case), we emit genital fluids. All this accumulates in the sheets.
Not only this, but textiles are also the ideal surface for other elements such as dust, animal hair, or plant pollen suspended in the air to accumulate over time.
Insufficient quantities, explains an expert sleep psychologist in an interview with the British media BBC, this mixture of elements can become an ideal breeding ground for the growth of bacteria, fungi, and mites.
When this happens, we run a certain risk of suffering from some infections (for example, of the urinary tract) but, especially, of allergic problems arising or worsening in people who already have them. Thus, not changing the bed sheets often can result in skin rashes, asthma, or chronic rhinitis.
The psychological aspect
However, there is another aspect that we should consider: the psychological. And it is that all those elements that tend to accumulate in the sheets leave sensitive traces, such as stains or odor.
Achieving adequate rest with an appropriate duration is vital for our health. And trying to get into a bed that smells of sweat or is visibly dirty does not help psychologically to feel comfortable in the place of rest, which can seriously harm the quality of it.
If we take into account these two aspects, the purely biological and the psychological, the expert considers that the ideal would be to change the sheets every week, and the maximum term would be two weeks.
Complying with these instructions can not only help us avoid infections and allergic reactions (acute and chronic) but also achieve a more pleasant and restful rest.