It’s a no brainer we have to wash our sheets and blankets, but how often? Well, according to research surrounding clinical microbiology and immunology, we never sleep alone. It is also proven that the washing regimen varies greatly between the generations. For instance, a lot of young adults go longer than middle aged adults without washing while elderly people don’t wash theirs as much as either one.
Ideally your pillowcases and sheets should be laundered once a week. This eliminates things like sweat, skin cells, dust mites and the feces from dust mites. You may also have unseen dangers like mold, dander, pet hair and bodily fluids on the sheets. From there many have makeup, dust, allergens and particulates on their sheets. All of these things can lead to respiratory infections and skin irritations over time.
Wash your bedding in hot water. You also want to dry it on a hot cycle.
Protecting the mattress is something that has to be done as well. You can get an outer cover at little cost. Gravity aids the mattress in its collection of debried. This puts a washable layer between your mattress and that debris. When you are laundering the mattress a good disinfectant spray should be used on the mattress itself, after vacuuming it of course.
Now, to break it down.
Every time you get in your bed you are taking germs, pollens, dander and whatever with you. You are sweating and shedding skin cells. Sheets and blankets can become really nasty really quick. So, changing the sheets once a week, maybe twice is a great idea.
When it comes to your blankets you want to do those once , maybe twice a month. If you do them once a month taking them in between washing and sticking them in the dryer with a couple of dryer sheets would help with freshness. If you do them twice a month they will be nice and clean with no reason to dry in between.
The thing is we spend a lot of out lives in the bed, so why would we not want that to be one of the cleanest places we have. It is right up there with kitchen and bathroom cleanliness. I mean, I cannot stress enough the hidden things that are actually lurking in and beneath the sheets. If you could look at them under a microscope it would make you want to sleep standing up, Yuck!
Almost all beds will definitely have dust mites. Dust mites eat very well off of all of the dead skin cells that are also in the sheets. These critters are living, doing the hanky panky, reproducing and dying all in the bed you are sleeping or watching tv in. The only way to keep their populations low is to launder your sheets, a lot. If you don’t mind the critters you may want to consider your health. It is not uncommon to develop immune system issues or allergies from dirty sheets.
Aside of bugs and dead skin cells you may also be lying in oils from your body, sweat, several types of bodily fluids and the potato chip crumbs you thought you cleaned up from the week before. Oh, and bed bugs love those by the way.
You have to wash your sheets more than once a month. The least you should wash your sheets is every other week, and optimally they would be washed once a week. Many people never think to wash or replace their pillow. This should be done at least twice a year. Pillows harbor things like bacteria, mold and yeast to name a few. Mold exposure could be quite detrimental to your health.
