We can be a grimy lot, or at least we can according to a new study. It turns out that the spotless, prim and proper English person might well be a bit of a thing of the past and that in actuality we’re a bit lazy and more than happy to wallow in our own filth for a while. One fifth of us don’t change our bed sheets nearly as often as they’d like us to think, they change them less than monthly which is a little disgusting on its own. 40% change them every week, 36% every two weeks and grimiest of all 1% of Britons change their sheets every year.

Now I’m sure you’re wondering what this has to do with health and wellbeing. Dirty sheets attract the kind of bed fellows you really don’t want. The longer it takes for you to clean your sheets the more dead skin and other leavings will accumulate thing will attract dust mites who just adore a nice warm place crammed with their favourite food. The mites eat dead skin cells and excrete a kind of protein which is a powerful allergen and can cause asthma attacks, eczema outbreaks and some nasty and persistent cold like symptoms.

All that because you couldn’t change your sheets more often? I think you can see where I’m going with this. I’m not suggesting god-like cleanliness, no one’s suggesting you live in a bleach scented bubble. Try and move into the once every two week category and you should be absolutely fine. Just remember that if you don’t and you find yourself unwell, you’ve only got yourself to blame and there’s absolutely nothing worse in the world than suffering from something that you know you could have prevented if you’d made a little effort.