I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a Type A housekeeper, but I try to stop myself from imposing my personal rules on my husband. He wouldn’t care if we never opened a single mail or folded a single laundry. I’m not going to try to change it – I just passive-aggressively do this sort of thing myself – but there are a couple of things I really can’t stand though: putting on hats, shoes or bags dirty on the floor. kitchen counters or at the dining table and, most importantly, wear socks to bed. For starters, I can’t stand the texture of socks on sheets – it’s always disgusted me. (I am not alone; there is a popular thread on Reddit about that.) Plus, like every other item you wear outside the house, they have to carry germs, right? I haven’t yet been able to persuade him to stop doing it because his feet get very cold, and I’m not entirely heartless, but the results of a new study may have just given me the support I need. I need to resolve this, uh, in bed.
It turns out that socks in bed aren’t just offensive to those of us with texture issues. Apparently the socks that many people wear to bed are literally dirty as a doormat. That’s right, your socks are another reason your bed could make you sick. They attract the grossest germs, including fecal matter, to your sheets. And these germs accumulate there, night after night, with disgusting things like mites. Shudder.
If you feel the same way I do about these findings, which fall somewhere between vindication and dry heaving, you’ll want to see the complete survey and pass it on to your partner. This is admittedly a very small study, but it might be just what you need to get them to your more hygienic side.
TL;DR: There is a British mattress company called MattressNextDay that always sends out interesting internal reviews. More recently, our British friends took samples of socks that seven people wore from morning to night and discovered that they were even dirtier than a notoriously contaminated television remote control, which they also swabbed and tested. In fact, the dirty sock samples looked exactly like the ones they took from a doormat – right down to the disgusting fact that about half contained bacteria called Pseudomonas aeruginosa on them. In case you didn’t know, this is something that cockroaches and their bacteria spread.
To link wearing socks to bedtime hygiene, the company then surveyed 1,000 adults and found that of the 18% who admitted to wearing socks to bed, only 30% put on a new pair in the evening. That means everyone else slips socks that have sweated into their shoes all day, walked on the locker room floor, and collected dirt, pet dander, crumbs, and whatever else into their “clean” sheets. found everywhere in the house. The essential ? As many as 30.5 million Americans could wear anti-poop socks to bed.
It may not be a gold-standard clinical trial, but it’s also not the first study to detect stomach-churning germs on floors. A 2007 study of the Global Hygiene Council found that the kitchen floor, in front of the sink, was the tenth most germy place in the entire house: twice as germy as the toilet seat and about 12 times as germy as the remote control. For a 2017 studyresearchers studied five Cleveland-area hospitals and found that floors were “often contaminated with health care-associated pathogens” and that “contact with objects on floors frequently resulted in the transfer of pathogens towards the hands”.
Obviously, I know that there are more people going through a hospital every day than in my house, but I also know that they clean their floors more often and with stronger chemicals than I do. Professionals in the cleaning sector also have underlines Because your floor makes up the largest surface area in your home, it’s natural for germs and contaminants to spread there, especially in areas that may be damp. And then you walk on this wet, disgusting floor with your socks on. It’s a vicious circle.
To gather even more ammunition, I reached out to real health and sleep professionals. Anna ChaconMD, board-certified dermatologist based in Miami and provider of MyteamPsoriasis.comsays: “Wearing socks at home and then going to bed is generally not a health problem. This can provide comfort and warmth. However, if your socks are dirty or sweaty, it’s a good practice to put on clean ones before entering. bed to maintain good hygiene.
Carlie Gasia, certified wellness coach at Sleep advisor, acknowledges that wearing socks to bed has some benefits, such as boosting circulation, but emphasizes that they need to be clean. “Dirty socks can accumulate bacteria that can spread to your bed, which can pose health risks,” she explains. “This is true even if you only wear your socks when you wear shoes: “Your socks can still accumulate dirt and bacteria. Additionally, if your feet tend to sweat, your socks can retain bacteria transferred from your shoes,” she points out.
Bottom line: Wearing those same socks to bed isn’t a big health problem, but it’s pretty gross, especially if you don’t change your sheets as often as you should. The general consensus among experts was: wear indoor slippers, get a hot water bottle, or just wash your feet and put on clean socks before bed, for heaven’s sake!
I still don’t know what all of this has to do with buying a new mattress…but I don’t necessarily need to know. Honey, if you’re reading this, I now have all the evidence I need to make my point. I tried the slippers, so maybe this year someone will get a classic hot water bottle for Christmas.