Here’s a very good reason to be lazy in the morning.
Since you spend more or less a third of your life asleep, your mattress can be considered your home. As it turns out, you’re living in the dirt.
According to the Sleep Council, old mattresses – regularly those 10 and older – provide an environment conducive to bacteria, including staphylococcus, enterococcus, norovirus, and, in rare cases, methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).
Mold can also be a problem if your room is damp.
The solution, strange as it may seem, is to stop making the bed in the morning. Bacteria and molds like warm, dark environments, so leaving the mattress exposed to air can help. (You don’t need to remove the sheets, just remove the heavy duvet and blankets.)
Here are three more reasons why your mattress is making you sick:
IS FULL OF HIDDEN CHEMICALS
Polyurethane, formaldehyde and boric acid are just some of the chemicals that we can find in common mattresses .
Flammable polyurethane, so to comply with safety regulations, many manufacturers treat mattresses with fire retardant chemicals that slowly release toxins over time and can be found in the planetary tissue of pregnant women.
Other gas-releasing chemicals can irritate your eyes, throat, nose, and lungs, and are linked with allergies, organ toxicity, and in some cases cancer.
What should you do:
Buy an organic mattress . Look for the Global Organic Textile Standard and the Global Organic Latex Standard, which certify that at least 95 percent of the materials are organic and that the rest cannot contain fire retardant chemicals or polyurethane.
It also looks for the Oeko-Tex Standard 100, which sets the limits for chemical emissions and certifies that the product does not contain certain fire retardant chemicals or dyes that cause allergies.
IT’S WATER OR THE SPRINGS ARE LOOSE
Whether you have a traditional spring or foam mattress , it will eventually lose its elasticity and start sinking in the most used areas. An uneven mattress will not support your body properly and can cause pain in your back, neck and joints, as well as interrupt your sleep cycle.
What should you do:
Turn your mattress regularly. This will prevent your body from sinking into the used areas of the mattress and will help you get eight hours of sleep.
If turning the mattress does not help you release tension in the body, consider investing in a new and organic one.
THE BED BUGS HAVE INVADED
Your mattress can be home to hundreds of thousands of bedbugs and mites that you snuggle with every night – so many that you may inhale the fecal waste these critters leave on your pillow and sheets.
Disgusting? According to the Pest Control Association of the United States, the average mattress can be between 100,000 and 2 million expensive and, after a decade, the weight of the mattress can be doubled thanks to its presence.
Unfortunately, mattresses are not the only place where bed bugs and expensive are found. The Department of Entomology at Ohio State University showed that up to 10 percent of the weight of a two-year-old pillow can be attributed to mites and their droppings.
What can you do:
Buy a mattress protector and vacuum it at least once a week.