Make Your Bed
& Tread Ahead
EXCUSES
You probably know all the excuses and may have used one (or more) yourself:
"I don't have time."
"No one is going to see it anyway."
"It's not important."
Excuses are easy, but it's also easy to make your bed each morning when it comes right down to it. No, you don't have to turn out a display worthy of Pinterest or Elle Decor—unless you enjoy that sort of thing, in which case have at it. But a quick fluff of the pillows and tug of the sheets and comforter takes only seconds, and it is the easiest way to make your entire bedroom look instantly better. Beyond that, however, there are some surprising benefits to making your bed each day.
“If you wanna change the world, start off by making your bed.”
Make Your Bed!
Making your bed each morning could make you more productive. According to Naval Admiral William McRaven, author of the book Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life...and Maybe the World, if you start your day by making your bed, that means you can go ahead with the rest of your day knowing that you’ve already accomplished something. “It will give you a small sense of pride and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another,” McRaven said in his 2014 commencement address at the University of Texas at Austin. “By the end of the day, that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed.”
It improves your sleep quality.
A poll conducted by the National Sleep Foundation found that people who make their bed in the morning are 19 percent more likely to have a good night's sleep every night—making your bed each morning could make you more productive.
It Leads to Better Productivity
"Wait a minute," you might be asking, "How is making the bed going to increase my productivity?" A fair question, and you'll find the answer in the book "The Power of Habit," by Charles Duhigg. According to the author, daily bed-making becomes a keystone habit that kickstarts a chain of other good decisions throughout the day and gives you a sense of taking charge. Duhigg claims that these keystone habits cumulatively lead to "a greater sense of well-being and stronger skills at sticking with a budget." Pretty impressive results, simply for taking a minute or two to pull up the sheets and comforter.
It Lowers Your Stress and Improves Your Mood
You spend roughly a third of your life in your bedroom, and the appearance of your room affects your mood. It's hard to feel calm, relaxed, competent and grounded when you are surrounded by disorganization. An adequately made bed (no, it doesn't have to be up to military standards, just neat and unrumpled) instantly makes the entire room look pulled together, creating a subtle vibe of tranquility and competence. A made bed shows that you care about yourself and your home, and that feeling of being cared for helps lift your mood and lighten your emotional burdens. Simply looking at clutter causes many people to feel stress or, at the very least, a sense of discomfort. A tidy space, on the other hand, has a calming effect. By making your bed, you've given your room a big step in the direction of cleanliness, and that can make you feel calmer and able to deal with stress.
According to Gretchen Rubin, it even makes you feel happier, author of "The Happiness Project." During her research for the book, she found that one of the most common simple changes that led to happiness was learning to make the bed each morning. So go for it; what else can do so much to make you happy with so little effort and in so little time? (Well, there is eating a chocolate bar. But there's no guilt involved with making your bed.)
It Just Looks and Feels Better
Think of what it's like to walk into a hotel room. The first thing that catches your eye is a neatly made bed that practically begs you to slide between the soft sheets. Now imagine that same hotel room, but with an unmade, rumpled bed. You'd probably recoil and call housekeeping right away. Would you still want to slide between those sheets? Probably not. There's just something about a made bed that feels better at the end of a long day, partly because it makes the bed look cleaner (even if you haven't changed your sheets in weeks), and partly because when a bed looks good, it also feels good. Few things match the pure pleasure of climbing into a smoothly made bed with a lightly plumped pillow after a hectic day.
So take those couple of minutes each morning to make your bed. It just might improve your entire life!
FUN Facts
It turns out it's not just a personal preference — you can learn a lot about a person by knowing whether or not they make their bed in the morning.
That's according to a recent survey of 2,000 Americans conducted by market research company OnePoll and commissioned by sleep research site Sleepopolis. The report recently highlighted on the TODAY show found that people who make their beds tend to be adventurous, confident, sociable, and high-maintenance. Meanwhile, people who don't make their beds tend to be shy, moody, curious, and sarcastic.
Your bed-making habits reveal a lot about your personality. People who make their beds are morning people. If you don't like to make your bed, you're likely a night owl. Further, bed-makers tend to be morning people who rise without alarm clocks. They're likely to work in health or technology-related fields. Those who don't make their beds, on the other hand, tend to be night owls prone to hitting the snooze button. They tend to work in business or finance.
An article in Psychology Today looked into a survey of 68,000 people and found that out of the people who reported being bed-makers, most of them consider themselves happy, while a majority of non-bed-makers said they were unhappy.
Going even deeper into the results, the bed-makers were more likely to own their own homes, exercise regularly, like their jobs, and feel well-rested regularly. The non-bed-makers experienced the opposite feelings.
Tips for Making Your Bed
Of course, you know how to make your bed, right? But can you make a bed as the professionals do in a hotel? A bed that looks so inviting, you can’t help but plop down on it the minute you enter the room? That takes effort, skill, and the following tips to master correctly.
Hospital Corners
The preciseness of your corners is crucial to making a bed that looks crisp and clean. It’s a little tricky when you try it the first time, but it gets much easier the more you do it.
♦ Put the fitted sheet on the mattress
♦ Lay the flat sheet on top
♦ Move to a corner at the foot of the bed
♦ Lift the mattress and tuck the foot end of the sheet under the mattress
♦ Grab the excess sheet on the side of the bed and lift it up. It will form a 45° angle with the corner of the mattress
♦ Tuck the triangle portion that is hanging down below the mattress under it on the side
♦ Now bring the part you’re still holding up down over the side of the mattress and tuck that in
Duvet or Top Blanket Placement
Placing your duvet or top blanket on the bed is relatively easy. Most people know that you want to hang it equally on three sides, excluding the top only. Many people don't realize that you want to have the top edge of it land about six inches short of the top of the mattress.
Pillow Placement
In the past, folding the comforter up over the pillow was considered the standard. Today the pillows take centerstage.
There are many ways to arrange your pillows on your bed, but all of the current trends focus on the pillows. Try for an overstuffed and luxurious piling of pillows.
Take-A-Way
Developing a few good habits that center around your daily activities gives you a sense of accomplishment and instills good feelings about yourself. Daily, you feel great about having made your bed, working out, getting to work on time, and making healthy meal choices.
These are small things in the grand scheme of life, but doing them daily can make a big difference. Research has shown a contagious quality to good habits. This means that small good habits can lead to other good habits. It's the feeling of accomplishment, doing something good for yourself, and the enjoyment of order that turns a simple chore into an addictive and rewarding habit.
So can becoming a bed-maker change your life? Retired U.S. Navy Admiral Seal William H. McCraven believes that picking up this daily practice can have a more significant impact than you might think.
Daily Bed Maker,
