Sleep and health: how to choose the right bedding

Health requires alter­nat­ing activ­i­ty and rest. After a busy day at work, the body needs relax­ation, dur­ing which the organs, mus­cles and cir­cu­la­to­ry sys­tem must relax and recov­er. To do this, you need a com­fort­able place to sleep: a com­fort­able bed with good linens.

Sweet dreams surrounded by luxury

Since ancient times, peo­ple have under­stood the impor­tance of sleep for health, so they have always paid atten­tion to a com­fort­able place to rest, which will allow you to com­plete­ly relax, unwind and gain strength.

For exam­ple, in the 4th cen­tu­ry BC, the ancient Romans used mat­tress­es filled with soft rab­bit hair, and silk sheets were placed on top of them. Sleep­ing on such mat­tress­es and sheets gave the body a spe­cial rest and relax­ation. And if these acces­sories were intend­ed for love nights, in this case, sheets made of thin linen embroi­dered with flow­ers were used.

In the Mid­dle Ages, bed linen was con­sid­ered an attribute of rich hous­es; only the nobil­i­ty could use it. Dur­ing the Renais­sance, wealthy peo­ple spread white sheets on their beds, which were dec­o­rat­ed with lux­u­ri­ous embroi­dery. And in Italy at that time every­thing white came into fash­ion: bed linen, table­cloths, tow­els, nap­kins.

In the 16th cen­tu­ry, it became fash­ion­able to dec­o­rate bed linen with embroi­dered mono­grams with the names of the own­ers. And for impor­tant events, for exam­ple, for a wed­ding, they pre­pared espe­cial­ly beau­ti­ful under­wear, on which the date of the cel­e­bra­tion was embroi­dered.

In the 17th cen­tu­ry, Hol­land became the leg­is­la­tor of under­wear fash­ion. Her linen fab­rics were con­sid­ered the best. Men’s and wom­en’s shirts with lace were sewn from thin Dutch linen and silk. Sheets were sewn from them, which at that time were unusu­al­ly high­ly val­ued. Dutch linen was dis­tin­guished by its smooth­ness, spe­cial noble lus­ter and dura­bil­i­ty.

In the 18th cen­tu­ry, snow-white linen, trimmed with lace along the edges, was a suc­cess. Espe­cial­ly beau­ti­ful sheets, pil­low­cas­es and duvet cov­ers were sewn by novices in monas­ter­ies. Such under­wear was expen­sive, only rich peo­ple could order it.

Peter the Great, dur­ing his vis­it to Europe, admired the local linen and invit­ed Flem­ish craftswomen to Rus­sia to teach this skill to monas­tic novices. The train­ing went well, as a result, our craftswomen began to sew such beau­ti­ful under­wear that it was sent to oth­er coun­tries (for export).

In the 19th cen­tu­ry, satin stitch embroi­dery came to the fore. Swiss seam­stress­es suc­ceed­ed in this, they began to pro­duce the best under­wear in the world, dec­o­rat­ed with satin embroi­dery.

Rus­sia became famous for linen bed linen. Linen yields in our coun­try have always been high, fab­rics made from it were dis­tin­guished by their spe­cial beau­ty and extra­or­di­nary strength. Any host­ess should have had a lot of bed linen, which was stored in chests of draw­ers and chests. Espe­cial­ly a lot of it was giv­en as a dowry to brides.

In the late 19th and ear­ly 20th cen­turies, inter­est in sports arose, hygiene, health, and good sleep began to be pro­mot­ed. Good under­wear became avail­able not only to rich hous­es, but also to most peo­ple.

Health and care

The bed linen set includes a sheet, a duvet cov­er and two pil­low­cas­es. The width of the sets can be sin­gle, one and a half and dou­ble. There is also a Euro­pean stan­dard, slight­ly dif­fer­ent from the Russ­ian one, and the so-called king size, designed for very wide beds.

Giv­en that the laun­dry may shrink dur­ing the first wash, it is rec­om­mend­ed to choose its size with some mar­gin when buy­ing.

Materials used

For bed linen, main­ly linen, cot­ton and silk are used.

Linen mate­ri­als are con­sid­ered the best. They are smooth, it pro­tects them from pol­lu­tion. Linen is easy to wash, so it’s easy to care for. In addi­tion, it is good for health, as it is high­ly hygro­scop­ic. It also has high strength and long ser­vice life.

Cot­ton under­wear is also good for health, as it is hygien­ic, hygro­scop­ic and easy to wash. How­ev­er, its strength is infe­ri­or to linen, it wears out faster. True, it has an unde­ni­able advan­tage: it is rel­a­tive­ly cheap.

From the point of view of con­sumer qual­i­ties, the best is bed linen made of silk. It does not cause aller­gies, does not elec­tri­fy, and also has antibac­te­r­i­al prop­er­ties. How­ev­er, com­pared to linen and cot­ton under­wear, it has a high cost. In addi­tion, car­ing for it is more dif­fi­cult than for cot­ton and linen. It should not be washed in the wash­ing machine, as this sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduces its strength.

Cur­rent­ly, bed linen man­u­fac­tur­ers are try­ing to use blend­ed fab­rics. For exam­ple, they blend cot­ton with ray­on, bam­boo fiber or syn­thet­ics. All this is done in order to reduce the cost of fin­ished prod­ucts.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, unscrupu­lous man­u­fac­tur­ers some­times do not indi­cate on labels and pack­ag­ing that under­wear con­tains arti­fi­cial fibers. This is only detect­ed dur­ing oper­a­tion. Syn­thet­ic fibers are elec­tri­fied, they pass air worse, do not allow sweat to evap­o­rate, etc. This neg­a­tive­ly affects health.

The most prac­ti­cal is under­wear made in light col­ors. Fab­rics of dark and bright col­ors often shed when washed. In recent years, the weav­ing indus­try has been devel­op­ing hypoal­ler­genic mate­ri­als and dyes specif­i­cal­ly for bed­ding.

Night rest in comfort

In the 20th cen­tu­ry, from the post-Octo­ber Rev­o­lu­tion peri­od until the last decades, spa­cious hous­ing was in short sup­ply (as was every­thing then). At that time, they didn’t real­ly think about a com­fort­able rest, there­fore, in Sovi­et times, small rooms and small-sized fur­ni­ture were in demand. For them, sin­gle duvet cov­ers and sheets were sewn.

Cur­rent­ly, sets of sin­gle linen are prac­ti­cal­ly not pro­duced. It is pro­duced only for rail­ways, pen­i­ten­tiaries and oth­er gov­ern­ment places.

Features of the cut of linen in different countries

In Europe, the USA, etc., pil­low­cas­es are rarely made with but­tons. More often they are sewn with a zip­per or with a wrap­around valve.

Duvet cov­ers are sewn in the form of an enve­lope, they can also have a closed flap on one (short) side, or they can be com­plete­ly fas­tened with a zip­per, snaps, but­tons. Or they are slot­ted, with a slot along the long side.

In Europe, the USA, etc., the sheets we are used to are rarely found. They often use sheets with an elas­tic band around the entire perime­ter, which are pulled over the mat­tress like a cov­er. Night rest on such sheets is com­fort­able, as they hold tight­ly and do not go astray.