Make Your Bed

On the surface, the idea of making your bed might seem mundane. However, there are significant benefits to making your bed each morning. Many successful organizations, including the military and Psychology Today, have looked at the benefits that making your bed has for the brain.

It’s something that a lot of people often leave behind. You wake up, the room is dark, you take a quick shower, and go about your day. Then you come home at night and you see a big pile of blankets and sheets right in the middle of the bed and you accept that it still needs to be made. Sometimes it can even be a little bit stressful to not have your bed made when all you want to do is go to sleep.

The Benefits of Making Your Bed

There is mounting evidence to support the fact that making the bed in the morning contributes towards making a person happier and more successful. A recent online survey of 68,000 people, which is a fairly substantial base of people, found that 59% of people don’t make their beds and 27% do. The remaining 12% were people that have someone else, like a housekeeper, make their bed for them.

They also found that 71% of the bedmakers consider themselves to be generally happy with their lives. 62% of non-bed makers admitted to being generally unhappy. Of course, these results can vary by the life circumstances of the individual. It can extend to their job satisfaction, owning a home, exercising regularly, proper diet, feeling well-rested. These things are all associated with people that fix their beds every day.

There is a basis behind fixing your bed each morning. What happens is you wake up and right away you’re training your brain to do a task and attend to an activity that makes you feel good. As a result, you start your day with a sense of accomplishment. This sets the tone for the rest of your day and carries over to completing other tasks. It is the start of the snowball effect that encourages you to keep a proactive attitude throughout the rest of your day.

When you stop and think about it, it only takes a couple of minutes in the morning to stop and make your bed. Start developing the habit, stick with it, and see what happens. I guarantee it will help to start your day off on the right foot because it’s the little things that make a difference.

Contributor Author: Dr. Michael Trayford is a Board Certified Chiropractic Neurologist and Founder of APEX Brain Centers in Asheville, NC. For additional information, and to learn more, please visit our Author's page.

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