Everyone was taught to make their bedsheets in the morning as a kid, but not everyone agrees on how often those sheets should be changed. The right balance between taking care of yourself and protecting your sheets’ integrity is hard to find.
Different seasons and other considerations also affect the answer to this question. Luckily, we don’t have to rely on just your parents’ advice anymore; we have the factors below to tell us how often we should freshen up our sheets.
Staying Clean
The most obvious reason we change our bedsheets is to stay nice and clean. It’s unhealthy to keep your living spaces full of dust or dirt. Your bed is where about 30% of your daily time is spent, so take good care of it. Wash your sheets at least every other week, at minimum.
Be Nice to Your Sheets
Although we are not active while we sleep, sheets are among the most actively used linens. Since we spend so much time sleeping, oil and dirt can quickly and easily accumulate. The easiest solution to this would be to wash our sheets every day.
However, please take a minute to think about what effect washing your skin multiple times a day has on it. It would get dry and flaky. Having some level of oil accumulate is healthy for your skin. The same goes for your sheets.
If you wash them too often, they will become dry, brittle, and uncomfortable. It will result in the sheets wearing out all too quickly. Leaving a small amount of dirt and oil will not harm the average person, and it just might save you a trip to the store to buy new sheets later.
Climate
The weather, too, can determine how often you should change your sheets. For this, I like to use the following alliterative phrase to help me remember when I should be changing my bedding: “Sticky Sundays, Mild on Mondays.”
“Sticky Sundays”
Many of us complain that with thick, humid air, it feels “sticky” outside during the rainy season from November to January. At night, this means we sweat a lot more than usual. As a result, it’s best to change your sheets a little bit more often–every week. I choose to do this on Sundays, hence the first part of our saying.
“Mild on Mondays”
It’s best to keep our washing to a minimum during the regular season since we want to preserve our sheets and keep them as comfortable as possible. About every other week should be fine during this time period (a more “mild” approach to washing you can take every other Monday). How often you wash should be increased; however, when you have some of the scenarios below.
Is Someone Sick at Home?
If someone in your family is sick, even if they aren’t using your bed, it’s best to change the sheets more often. This will minimize the likelihood of us getting sick ourselves. The same goes for the other household linens like towels.
Nude or No?
If you sleep naked, it is also better to wash your sheets more often. There will be more body oil on the sheets due to more skin contact with the sheets.
Do You Have Sensitive Skin?
Acne problems can be devastatingly hard to get rid of. Stubborn zits thrive off of oily environments. Bacteria from these zits can build up on your pillowcase or sheets, leading to a vicious cycle of acne. To minimize this, some people change their pillowcases every night or put a t-shirt over their pillow instead.
T-shirts are less expensive than sheets, so it is less costly if you wear them by washing them every day. However, if you have body acne or another skin condition, you should wash your sheets maybe twice a week with gentle soap. These detergents will have “for sensitive skin” somewhere on the label.
Do You Dust?
How often you dust your room can also slightly affect how often you should wash your sheets. If you find your sheets dirtier, faster, it’s probably because the surrounding environment isn’t spotless. If you’re not willing to clean more often, then wash your sheets more instead.
Are You Sleeping Alone?
If you’re not sleeping alone, aka, you should definitely increase your sheet washing to once a week if you have a spouse or kids. Family is great, but they can increase how dirty your sleeping space is (especially young kids who get into things or sleep with you and your spouse often).
Do You Have Pets?
Along with dusting and sleeping companions, we can’t forget pets. Pet hair can require more dusting in the house for sure, but what about sheets? If the pet is at any point coming into the bed, the sheets should definitely be washed every week. Pets come into the house with all sorts of dirt and bacteria on their paws. That, along with their shedding, calls for washing your sheets more often.
Are You a Home-Body?
How much time we sleep in our beds largely determines how often you should change your sheets. Is it about 50 hours a week? Less or more? What if you are spending time in bed even though you aren’t sleeping?
With the advent of the internet, many of us are spending more time in bed than ever. We can spend a night watching Netflix in bed or even work from home in our beds! If either of these scenarios describes you, you are better off washing your sheets once or twice a week.
Do You Eat in Bed?
While we do some of the activities mentioned above in bed, we naturally might want a snack. Some of us are totally opposed to eating in bed, but we might need to change our sheets more often for those who dare to mix food and relaxation.
This, of course, depends on how messy of an eater you are. If you’re meticulously clean, then there may be no reason eating in bed should increase how dirty your sheets are. However, if you’re a little messy like most of us, you should definitely wash up more.
Personal Preferences
After taking all the factors above into account, we can’t leave out personal preferences. If climbing into a bed that smells like fresh detergent makes you feel more at home, you should definitely up how often you change your bedding. If you’d rather get into a bed that has softer, less brittle sheets, the opposite is true for you.
The above scenarios show that there is a lot to consider when deciding how often to change your sheets, but our guidelines, along with your personal preferences, should make the decision easy!