This Is How Often You Need To Wash Your Bed Sheets

We spend a third of our lives sleeping, lounging about (and the rest) in bed, but if you aren't changing your sheets regularly, you could be sharing a pillow with some very suspect bedfellows. The bed is a breeding ground for a menagerie of organisms, each one happily feeding away on a grim list of substances that has helpfully been compiled by New York University School of Medicine scientist Philip Tierno. "You have spores of fungi, bacteria, animal dander, pollen, soil, lint, finishing agents of whatever the sheets are made from, colouring material, all sorts of excrements from the body including sweat, sputum, vaginal, and anal excretions, urine milieu, skin cells," Tierno, a microbiologist, told Tech Insider.

"Plus there are cosmetics that people use - they put oils and creams on their body, all of that is in that milieu."

And it gets worse: "You know how Rome was covered and we excavated to find out Rome? That's because gravity [causes debris] to settle over time and bury things," Tierno said.

"The same thing happens with mattresses and pillows: Gravity brings down all this debris and it settles in the core of the pillow and the mattress. And you're inhaling that debris eight hours a day."

We all love the sensation of collapsing into fresh bed linen, but there's more to stripping the bed than just that meadow-fresh fabric softener scent. So, how often should we be enjoying that fresh sheets feeling in order to limit the number of nasties we're exposed to in our sleep?

"Stuff like that accumulates to become significant usually between one or two weeks," Tierno says. "Bottom line, they should be washed probably on the average of once a week."

So now you know. Do you wash your sheets more than once a week? Tell us about your laundry obsession at @HerFamilydotie.