This may be the reason you're not sleeping well

From House Beautiful UK

Do you change your bed sheets on a weekly basis? According to a recent study, 58 per cent of people do not change their sheets the recommended amount and 88 per cent don't wash their duvet and pillow enough.

It is also a little known fact that this can greatly affect your sleep. Seeing as we spend a whopping one third of our lives sleeping, it's important to maintain bed hygiene.

To tie in with National Bed Month, London Cleaning System carried out the research, surveying 1,600 people to decipher where poor sleepers may be going wrong. The results found that only 42 per cent of people changed their bed sheets once a week, 36 per cent every two weeks and 15 per cent only once a month.

Due to the build-up of bacteria and dirt, duvets and pillows should be washed every two to three months. And mattresses should be cleaned four times a year by vacuuming up dead skin cells, malted pet hair, and dust. One gross fact to think about is that we shed five stones worth of dead skin in our lifetime.

Not cleaning the bed properly can seriously affect your sleep and may result in infections and viruses. So sleep clean, doze better and live healthy.

'It is vital for health purposes to maintain a clean mattress,' said Filip Mijatov, managing director of London Cleaning System. 'Ensuring your bedding and mattress are cleaned routinely will avoid a build-up of skin cells and fluids, amongst an abundance of bacteria-related threats. The survey ultimately highlights the importance of making people aware of the health benefits of a well-maintained bed, in relation to the risks presented with one that is not.'

Check out the survey results and some interesting bed facts in the infographic below:

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