DYK: Pillowcases can accumulate more bacteria than a toilet seat in just a week

Who doesn’t love their bed?

It doesn’t matter if you’re a hyper-planning overachiever or just someone who likes to take things slow and easy (all the time) — there may hardly be anything which’s satisfaction parallels the feeling of your head hitting the pillow, YOUR own pillow, at the end of the day. Bliss!

Well, we’re here to dampen your favourite time of the day, in the hopes that you dampen the perp…we mean pillowcase, a little more often. Research conducted by mattress brand Amerisleep found that pillowcases left unwashed for just one week can become a breeding ground of up to 3 million colony-forming units (CFUs) of bacteria per square inch. This is about 17,000 times the amount of bacteria found on a typical toilet seat, making pillowcases one of the filthiest surfaces we frequently touch.

As a rule of thumb, it’s generally considered good practice to wash your bedsheets once every 1 to 2 weeks to keep them clean and fresh. You may want to slightly consider the regularity due to some overarching factors such as if you sweat a lot at night, have allergies, or share your bed with pets. But even in these scenarios, once a week should still manage to do the trick. Assuming you flip your pillowcases with your bedsheets, following the once-a-week-wash routine, will potentially minimise the bacterial fallout, of well, sleeping. And make your sleep hygiene airtight by adding a teensy bit of disinfectant when you send your sheets and pillowcases for their weekly wash and you should be good.

On a lighter note, the reactions from the internet to this revelation, are as usual, hilarious: “Cool story, just flip it over to the cool side”, “You haven’t seen my toilet seat”, “That’s why I sleep on my toilet seat”, “No wonder my immune system can handle anything” and “I do it once a month to keep my immune system top form” made for some hilarious takes.

But coming back to immediate measures, toss that pillowcase into the washing machine, won’t you?