Imagine coming in late after a long day, having a shower and getting ready for bed. The last thing on your mind is using one of the best hair dryers when all you want to do is get into bed and sleep. Yep, we've all been there.
There's a lot of opinions out there about going to bed with wet hair, mostly surrounding the idea that leaving your locks on the damper side can make you ill. However, there's actually a whole other reason why it's a bad idea, and it's all to do with your headboard...and erm, dust mites.
With this in mind, I spoke to the experts at Happy Beds who explained how going to bed with wet hair turns your headboard into the perfect breeding ground for mites. Keep reading to find out more, and what you can do to avoid it.
Before you do, have you seen our guides on how to clean your mattress and how to clean your duvet?
1. Never rest wet hair against your headboard
As mentioned, resting wet hair against your headboard can provide an excellent breeding ground for mites, due to the humidity created by your wet and warm head against the surface.
It’s advised that to prevent the build-up, you should avoid sitting in bed with wet hair and certainly from resting your wet hair against the back of your headboard if you like to read in bed.
You should also wash your bedding weekly to prevent the build-up of mites and other bacteria from spreading to your headboard.
2. Don’t keep your pillow for longer than two years
If you think about it, when was the last time you cleaned or even replaced your pillow? If this question has panicked you, you should probably know that the longer you keep your pillow the more dust mites can gather.
Studies have found that early-life exposure to dust mites was associated with wheezing in children up to 12 months, and asthma developing from the ages of 12-36 months old. Minor allergies to dust mites can also result in a runny nose and other symptoms that can impact the ability to sleep.
Read our guide on how to clean a pillow for more information on this.
3. Remember to clean the inner corners of your headboard
Bed bugs are a common enemy for households all over the world, especially as they hide in areas where light doesn’t reach them. That makes the inner corners of your headboard the ideal hiding spot. You’ll not likely find them crawling around the headboard surface, so you’ll have to do some digging to find them.
Bed bugs can cause all manner of sleep disruptions, with studies finding those who experience bed bugs are at risk of disturbances in their sleep and developing anxiety symptoms. This can lead to increased cortisol levels which are the opposite of the sleep hormone, melatonin.
If you found that helpful, have you seen what happened when we tried a bedding calculator. The results were crazy!
