Contents
Three good reasons to change your pillowcase every day
Why do we ask the hotel to change bed linen every day, but at home we do it only once a week or even once a month?
Sleep in a person’s life takes from 6 to 8 hours – almost the same amount of time we spend at work. You can imagine wearing the same shirt all week without washing it. Sweat, sebum and skin particles are also secreted during sleep. Therefore, changing bed linen, namely pillowcases once a week, is extremely unpleasant, but there are other good reasons as well.
Prolonged use of the same bedding set, in particular pillowcases, leads to the accumulation of pathogens and fungi that negatively affect human health, says Philip Tierno, a microbiologist at New York University.
Acne
Acne is often caused by a dirty pillowcase. If you take samples from the toilet seat and from the pillowcase that was used for a week, the indicators will be approximately identical. You will be shocked, but your pillow is as breeding ground for bacteria as the toilet is. On the surface of the pillowcase, you can find skin particles, dust, hair particles, and the remnants of your night cream serve as a nourishing “sauce” for all this splendor. Such a mixture of bacteria appears on the face every day, it is not surprising that acne appears. The situation is aggravated if your pets sleep with you, in which case there are also particles of hair on your face.
Asthma or allergies
In addition to bacteria in the pillows and on the surface of the pillowcase, dust mites live, they cause allergic reactions and, in rare cases, asthma. They feel great on natural fabrics at an air temperature of 20 to 30 degrees – in general, all conditions are created for them in the bedroom. You can get rid of dust mites only by washing in hot water and processing fabrics with a hot iron. It was not for nothing that our grandmothers boiled bed linen.
Insomnia
There is nothing more pleasant than putting your head on a freshly washed, fragrant and crispy pillowcase after a hard day. The smell of fresh linen evokes associations with childhood and safety, our brains instantly turn off, promoting rapid sleep and sound sleep.
Of course, changing a pillowcase every day is not always convenient – it takes a lot of effort and time, and frequent washing at high temperatures significantly reduces the life of the pillowcase.
Buy several pillowcases in a neutral color, so you can change them daily, but wash, as usual, once a week.
Steam is also a great alternative to washing. If you are having trouble changing your bedding, just iron the pillow with a hot steam iron before bed.
Another great winter life hack: in the morning, before making the bed, open the window wide open for 20-30 minutes, let the frosty air refresh the bed, and low temperatures are just as destructive for microbes and dust mites as high temperatures. Of course, changing a pillowcase every day is not always convenient – it takes a lot of effort and time, and frequent washing at high temperatures significantly reduces the life of the pillowcase.
Elena Malysheva in one of the episodes of the program “Living is Healthy” listed the basic rules for choosing bed linen. When buying the right bedding, you need to pay attention to the following:
air permeability (it will depend on how comfortable it will be to sleep);
how well the laundry allows moisture to pass through (a high-quality set should absorb sweat);
by what means is this linen dyed (high-quality dyes should be used during production).
It turned out that silk took the palm. A set of this fabric meets all the requirements. Alas, bedding made from this material is not budgetary. Therefore, Elena Malysheva advised to choose the golden mean – a set of undyed cotton. Such underwear does not look so impressive, but according to the requirements, it is not much inferior to silk products.
The chief physician of Channel One does not advise anyone to choose sets of synthetic fabrics.