People who thrash around a lot in their sleep, now they got some work ahead of them.

My god, how sad is that.

But I tell myself it’s to do one thing every day, like the people who make it to a hundred say.

Autonomy … it’s not just for grown-ups anymore.

I keep the covers off so that the mattress can dry and air out.

And I’m seconding the use of duvets. A fluffy untucked-in duvet draped across the bed makes it much more homey.

Since I was a child, I’ve been told that the pain goes away if I stretched and bent more often, and it never has. I try to get as far as I can nowadays without having to do that.

making your bed is the cornerstone of discipline. as anyone who has been in the army will tell you making your bed and keeping your locker tidy is the first and most important thing.

so keeping your stuff tidy is a form of control. in a family it gives children a set of rules of behaviour, in larger groups like the army or old school rigid colleges it keeps a group from degenerating in a mob and respecting authority. at least in theory.

But anyway–I was raised to ALWAYS, ALWAYS make the bed–with tight corners, tucked on all sides, no wrinkles, etc. I don’t have time in the mornings anymore, but thanks to the near-morality with which it was weighted all through childhood, I feel terrible about it, everytime I come home at night.

On a different note, how often do you folks in warm climes change your sheets (since we’re talking about letting sweat evaporate and whatnot)?

Oh, and everything else in my room is pretty neat. I don’t do work on my bed, but the few times I have, I straighten it out then.

Covers get pulled up roughly when I get up, because otherwise the cat sleeps in the bed and sheds hair on everything.

Sweat is not much of an issue because we keep the house 15-16C at night. Sheets are changed weekly-ish.

The bed is sheets, duvet in a duvet-cover (like a pillowcase, but huge) and for me an extra afgan thrown on top because 15-16C is cold no matter what he says. :P

making your bed is the cornerstone of discipline. as anyone who has been in the army will tell you making your bed and keeping your locker tidy is the first and most important thing. so keeping your stuff tidy is a form of control. in a family it gives children a set of rules of behaviour, in larger groups like the army or old school rigid colleges it keeps a group from degenerating in a mob and respecting authority. at least in theory.

“Structure and discipline!” You people are nuts, along with the religious and social conservatives.

Bed making is petty vanity, pure and simple.

No one is looking at your bed during the day.

No one who sleeps in my bed cares whether it’s “made” or not, since the covers come off in two seconds anyway.

Hell, for a long time I didn’t even have the luxury of a bed.

(c.f. she hates my futon)

I have always had doonas – never with a top sheet – summer weight and winter weight so making the bed really just means folding it down in summer or just pulling it straight after you get out of bed in winter.

Warmer climes – I’m in Australia and I wash the bedding every week. I change the sheets every 3 days in summer and every week in winter. We have insane temperatures here. A few weeks back it went from 40 degrees c down to 7 degrees c in one day.

Not that I always bother doing even that. But when I make my bed American style, with fitted sheet, flat sheet, and comforter/bedspread, it’s such a huge pain that I never do it. Then I get in bed and the flat sheet is all twisted around from tossing and turning all night, or kicked down to the bottom of the bed, and it annoys me.

I was never good at hospital corners anyway. My mom tried so hard to teach me. I guess I’m naturally too impatient and careless for hospital corners, and I never found that I slept any better or worse with them than without them.

I wash/change the sheets and duvet cover about once a week.

Here’s a question: When I was a kid I read in Hardy Boys books about “shortsheeting” a bed as a practical joke. I’ve never seen it done, and still have no idea how you would actually do it. Can anyone enlighten me?