Clean
When you get up in the morning, the first thing you should do is make your bed. It doesn’t matter if it’s 5 a.m. or 1 p.m, the moment you leave your bed you should turn around, pull the comforter up and place some nice pillows on top. As someone who has been making my bed every morning for all of high school, I have found this simple exercise to make me feel a little more in control. It is the first task I complete each morning, setting a positive tone of accomplishment for the remainder of my day.
In addition to lifting your mood in the morning, making your bed can translate to helping you sleep at night. A poll by the National Sleep Foundation found that people who make their bed are 19% more likely to get a “good night’s sleep.” Additionally, 75% of people reported that changing your sheets often can increase the quality of sleep.
Making your bed isn’t the only task that improves health and productivity. Keeping my room clean makes me feel more relaxed and put-together.
A study by professors at DePaul University found that living in a cluttered environment can lead to higher procrastination rates and overall negative emotions. Similarly, a study by the Princeton University Neuroscience Institute found that an overcrowded space in the home can lead to higher rates of stress due to overstimulation in the brain.
So yes, making your bed and cleaning your room appear to be mundane. But the few extra minutes it takes to pull your covers up or put away a pile of laundry can lead to a happier mind, well rested body and overall feeling of calm.
Messy
It’s completely and utterly useless to clean my room. It is not worth my time to put away clothes, make my bed or tidy up my desk. When I finish my laundry, it’s much more efficient to pile it up on my bed, couch or floor instead of folding it, and putting it neatly into my dresser.
According to Avoncleaners, a dry cleaning and laundry company, it takes around 20 minutes to fold and put away your clothes. If you do the laundry three times a week, you waste an hour of your life doing something that is not fun to do.
The average American lives for 4,732 weeks according to Bloomberg. When we do the calculations, you will waste around 283,920 minutes, which rounds down to 4,732 hours, which means you’ll spend 197 days doing laundry. Is that how you want to live?
When it comes to making your bed, it is not only another waste of time but also a health risk.
Fun fact, approximately 1.5 million dust mites share your bed with you every night, feeding on your skin while you sleep. According to the Washington Post, experts say that if you leave your bed “unmade and exposed,” the dust mites will dehydrate and die. I’m personally not a fan of being nibbled all night long, so my bed will stay unmade.
The other reason why it is completely useless to make your bed is because you are going to sleep in it the next night, which will then make it messy again, so why bother? Exactly, don’t.
