Your bed is full of dust mites that are toxic to the lungs. Here’s how to kill them quickly, easily and naturally.

If you make your bed immediately when you get up, the sheets will trap millions of mites living in bed, feeding on the dead cells of your skin and sweat, and potentially contributing to allergy and asthma problems. A undone and open bed, however, exposes these creatures to fresh air and light and this will help to dehydrate and kill them.

Dr Stephen Pretlove of the University School of Architecture in Kingston, offers a simple explanation. When you make your bed, especially immediately after you have risen, you trap the heat of your body, the dead cells of your skin and especially your sweat in bed. But let the undone bed exposes the sheets to the air and light, drying them and thus, reducing the lifespan of the dust mites.

While we sleep, we sweat. An average person may sweat up to one litre per night. This creates an ideal breeding ground for dust mites.

Why this advice? Stop the number of mites living in your bed.

Scientists estimate that there could be up to 1.5 million mites that live on average in a bed, feeding on dead cells that we lose on our sheets while we sleep.

It is not so much their existence – as they leave behind that poses problems for humans. Their excretions can increase dust allergies and cause asthma flares up when inhaled.

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