So what happens if you don't keep up with this weekly chore? The most common substances that will accumulate in your bedding include sweat, dead skin cells, skin oils, residue from makeup and skincare products, and dust mites, says Dr.
Without regular cleaning, dirty sheets can contribute to allergies, skin breakouts, asthma, and more. For your health and sleep quality, it's important to keep things clean – but how often should you wash your sheets?
You should probably change your bedsheets once a week. Think about it: You spend hours in bed every night, and your sheets collect skin flakes and an assortment of bodily fluids and oils. Then there's stuff like dust, dust mites, and (if you have a cat or dog) pet hair.
We'll cut straight to the chase: You should be changing your bed sheets once a week. "The longest you should wait before changing out your sheets is two weeks," says Carolyn Forté, executive director of the Good Housekeeping Institute Home Care & Cleaning Lab "Weekly is even better."
It's helpful to have a few sheet sets on hand makes it easy to quickly swap. While once a week is a good rule of thumb, how often you should wash your sheets depends on how quickly they get dirty. For example, suppose you travel often and don't sleep in your own bed every night.
Forty-one percent of women wash their sheets once a week, while 33 percent of men do the same.
A Bedding Brush-Off
According to our findings, the average person changes sheets roughly every 24 days, or a bit less often than once every three weeks. Interestingly, pillowcases had a slightly longer average unwashed period, clocking in at 24.6 days before being cleaned or swapped for fresh ones.
Here's what we found: About 46% of the people we surveyed wash their bed sheets as often or more often than they're supposed to — a surprisingly large chunk of people. Bravo, SurveyMonkey pollsters. But still, the slight majority, 54%, do not wash their sheets often enough — only a few times per month or less.
Dead skin cells, sweat, saliva, and more can turn your comfy bed into a petri dish for germs to grow. For instance, lab tests found that swabs from pillowcases unwashed for a week harbored 17,000 times more colonies of bacteria than samples taken from a toilet seat.
Dead skin cells, bacteria, and even sweat can accumulate quickly on your towels, so using a fresh one about every three days is a simple rule of thumb—for all kinds of towels. You can of course change them more often.
Is it okay to change your bed sheets once a month? While your specific sheet changing habits might vary a little bit depending on your lifestyle, your body, and your preferences, most experts agree you should change your sheets every week or every two weeks.
“If you don't wash your sheets often enough, bacteria can disrupt the balance in your microbiome, which is home to the 'good' bacteria and microbes in your body," Young says. This can make you more prone to skin conditions like acne or eczema.
You may be thinking, can you get bed bugs from not washing your sheets? No—bed bugs have absolutely nothing to do with cleanliness levels. However, washing your sheets regularly gives you the opportunity to look for and remove any possible bed bug infestations.
Most hotels rotate their sheets and towels regularly according to their guidelines and regulations. Some hotels change linens in every room once every three days, while others will only change the sheets and towels if a customer specifically requests it.
According to the Mattress Advisor survey, married couples change their bedclothes about every 19.9 days whereas single people wait 37 days on average. And single men change them less often than single women. Mattress Advisor also found that people usually wait four to 11 days to wash sheets after sexual activity.
Men are more likely to wait longer between sheet changes than women (29.6 days vs. 19.4 days). On average, single people go 37 days before changing their sheets, while those in relationships go 21.8 days, and married couples go 19.9 days.
A large proportion of us Brits (40%) change our sheets every fortnight while an incredible 24% only change them every three or four weeks! Bed sheets can accumulate a lot of dirt and grime while you sleep such as dead skin cells. But they can also lay home to dust mites and are invisible to the naked eye.
Study Reveals Almost Half Of Single Men Change Their Bedsheets Just 3 Times A Year. According to new research, single men have admitted to waiting up to four months to wash their bed sheets, while others go even longer between washes.
First, you may start to notice a musty smell coming from your bed. This is because the sweat and oils from your body are building up on the sheets and not being washed away. The build-up of dirt and grime can also cause skin irritation or rashes.
Baking Soda
Baking soda has been a trusty household staple for decades—and for good reason. Not only does baking soda regulate the PH levels of water, it also brightens and deodorizes, making it the perfect cleaning agent for clothing, bedding and towels.
Lisa Ackerly, home health hygienist, described Sick Bed Syndrome to the Daily Mail as a condition where the bed becomes a breeding ground not only for dust mites, but disease causing bacteria and viruses.
“Washing once a week is best,” says lifestyle expert Cheryl Nelson. “But definitely wash sheets AT LEAST once every two weeks. That's the maximum amount of time you should go.
Typically, hotels wash their bedding once every week including various kinds of comforters, sheets, and pillows. However, they often swap out the pillowcases and linens between the guests. It's a common practice that the hotel comforters are rarely automatically changed – unless a guest requests it.