How often you should wash your bed sheets and what happens if you don’t
Around a third of our lives is spent in bed, a place that can easily bloom into a fauna of bacteria and fungus, according to New York University microbiologist Philip Tierno. If left too long, the microscopic life hidden in the sheets can make us sick, he told Business Insider.
Sheets should be washed once a week. Humans produce around 26 gallons of sweat in bed each year. When the weather outside gets hot and humid, the moisture becomes an ideal medium for fungal cultures. Besides your microbial life that includes fungi and bacteria from sweat, sputum, skin cells, vaginal and anal excretions, your bed is also shared with foreign microbes, such as animal dander, pollen, soil, lint, dust mite debris and faeces.
All the microbes become significant within a week, as the Independent reports. Unclean bedding can lead to sniffing and sneezing. “Even if you don’t have allergies per se, you can have an allergic response,” Tierno said.
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Your behaviour and sweat patterns are not the only culprits for your sheets getting dirty, because gravity is also to blame. “Just like Rome over time was buried with the debris that falls from gravity, gravity is what brings all that material into your mattress,” Tierno said.
One to two weeks of microbial buildup would be enough to leave anyone with a painful throat, especially those who suffer from allergies or asthma. “If you touched dog poo in the street, you’d want to wash your hands,” Tierno said. “Consider that analogous to your bedding. If you saw what was there — but of course you don’t see it — after a while, you have to say to yourself, ‘Do I want to sleep in that?'”
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