Your Essential Guide To Better Bedding And Mattress Care

Are you looking for a restful night’s sleep? If so, then you’re well on your way to achieving a healthier and better version of yourself real soon. Your bedroom is the place where you relax after a long, hard day of work. It is also where you spend nearly one-third of your life. So you should pull out all the stops to make it clean, beautiful, and comfy.

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To achieve this, it is important for you to know the proper way to wash and dry your bedding, as well as how to keep them safe and hygienic. So, if you’re looking for an easy and quick way to create a healthy and serene sleeping place, then you’re in luck. Follow this essential guide to better bedding and mattress care.

Turn your bedroom into a sleep haven.

Your bed should be your dearest friend. Cover it with fresh, clean sheets. Make your bedroom more conducive to sleep by keeping the light at a minimum, maintaining a cool room temperature, as well as suppressing any loud noises.

Also, you’ll be able to sleep better by removing any unnecessary items such as laptops, mobile devices, dirty laundry, and the like.

Remember that your bedroom is meant for sleeping, relaxing or having sex. Don’t bring your work to bed or any other activity that will deter you from sleeping.

Get your sheet together.

Generally, wash your sheets at least once a week to eliminate any dust or dirt that has accumulated over time. Use warm water instead of hot to avoid shrinking the fibers.

To prolong the longevity of your printed or colored pillow cases, wash them inside out to protect its colors. Also, don’t forget to check the care label before laundering.

For dealing with pesky stains and spots, use oxygenated bleach on white or light-colored sheets instead of chlorine-based bleach, which can harm most linens.

Tumble dry your sheets and remove them before they’re fully dry to reduce wrinkles. You can avoid mildew growth by making sure they’re fully dry and neatly folded before you keep them in storage.

Protect your pillows.

Enclose them in pillow protectors, preferably with zippered covers, to keep nasty allergens away and prevent hair and body oils from seeping into the filling.

You should wash your pillows at least once every six months even though you’re using protective covering while laundering the covers at least twice a month, along with your bed cover. Remember to check the label before washing them so you can follow the instructions carefully.

Most pillows are machine washable, so it is better for you to use a mild liquid detergent instead of powder to avoid unwanted residue. Make sure you run them through the rinse cycle twice without using detergent the second time so that they will be fully rinsed. Lastly, fluff your pillows regularly to prevent the filling from going flat. This will make them last longer.

Mattress matters.

There are many things you can do for the upkeep of your mattress. Use a quilted or padded cover to prevent it from absorbing moisture or perspiration which may hasten its depreciation. Wash the cover at least twice a month.

Most mattresses nowadays are generally well-designed, so flipping it over occasionally won’t be necessary. Some experts may suggest that rotating the mattress end-to-end once a month for at least six months to promote the equal distribution of weight throughout the bed.

The lifespan of a high-quality mattress typically ranges from 20 to 50 years, while a midrange brand can last up to 10 years or more. If your back becomes stiff, then it’s probably time for you to get a new one because your mattress is probably worn down and has lost its cushioning.

One more thing.

If you suffer from allergy, ensure that you always use a fresh, clean cover and regularly wash your linens. The excessive accumulation of dirt and dust will only make your symptoms worse. According to the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, keeping your bedroom well ventilated and replacing your old mattress are the two best things you can do to lessen the collection of dust in your mattress.

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Essential Guide To Finding The Right Mattress

3 Effortless Hacks To Help You Sleep Well Tonight

When was the last time you fell asleep without any hitch? It seems like many of us need to make a special effort just to have a good night’s sleep. As people age, sleeping well becomes difficult, which may be attributed to various changes in sleeping patterns. Nonetheless, our body needs to rest adequately in order for us to stay healthy, alert, and vibrant.

We listed three easy sleep hacks to help you achieve a restful night’s sleep:

1. Listen to music. In the olden days, mothers sing gentle, soothing lullabies to their younglings at bedtime. Well, this long-forgotten practice is proven to be effective not just for babies but for grown-ups as well, according to a recent study. Researchers found that adults who listen to relaxing music before bedtime can greatly increase the quality of sleep. Professor Jim Horne of the Sleep Research Centre at Loughborough University explains, "If anyone is a bit agitated before they go to bed, then anything that can help calm them down and relax is a good thing.”

2. Drink milk to sleep well. The age-old wisdom of drinking a warm glass of milk at bedtime may induce sleep, thanks to tryptophan, an amino acid known to have sedating effects. However, a study conducted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology argued that drinking milk has little to do with inducing sleep because ingesting food rich in protein, like milk, can impede tryptophan from affecting the brain. Instead, they opine that eating carb-rich foods will promote the production of insulin which, in turn, helps the tryptophan to easily enter the brain. Scientists conclude that the habit of drinking milk before sleeping has a psychological effect, similar to a security blanket. 

3. Take a warm bath. Soaking in a tub for 20 or 30 minutes before going to bed can help you feel relaxed. According to a study from the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, our body’s normal temperature declines in the evening two hours before we sleep. So, soaking in warm water triggers a natural spike in our body’s temperature, then helps you feel relaxed after cooling down. Professor Joyce Walsleben of the New York University School of Medicine suggests, "If you raise your temperature a degree or two with a bath, the steeper drop at bedtime is more likely to put you in a deep sleep."

15 Facts about Sleep that you don’t know yet

Why do you sleep? It is a dumb question to ask, we only know that sleep is the most important factor in our lives just like exercise and eating, but here are some facts that you don’t know about sleep.

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1. Scientists have determined that counting sheep is ineffective for putting oneself to sleep. Evidently it is too boring and imagining a calming landscape generally works much better.
2. With an average lifespan of 6 – 8 years mattresses have plenty of time to gather some nasty stuff and one study even linked them to sudden infant death syndrome.
3. Somniphobia is the fear of sleep.
4. Sleeping less than 7 hours each night reduces your life expectancy.
5. “There are two periods of maximum sleepiness — the late afternoon (from around 3 to 5 PM) and the end of the night (from around 3 to 5 a.m.). There are also two periods of maximum alertness — around 1 a.m. in the morning and 1 p.m. in the afternoon.”
6. Some deaf people make sign language in their sleep.
7. Lack of Sleep can cause a weight gain of 2 pounds in under a week.
8. “Getting too little sleep often makes people feel hungrier than normal, leading to overeating and weight gain.”
9. It is impossible to sneeze while sleeping.
10. Most people can survive for  up to 2 months without eating, but people can only live  up to 11 days without sleeping.
11.The world record for not sleeping was set by 17-year-old Randy Gardner in 1964 when he was awake for 264 hours and 12 minutes.
12. Dysania is the state of finding it hard to get out of bed in the morning.
13. “A survey of 6,000 British adults found that they are more likely to fall asleep when they heard Coldplay.”
14. Tibetan monks sleep upright.
15. Half of the pilot surveyed in the UK admitted to having fallen asleep while flying a passenger plane

This is just a few of the other facts about sleep. I hope you learned something today.