For many of us, bedding is washed on a weekly basis. Maybe less often if you're a little more lax with these things, maybe even more frequently if you're determined to be extra thing. One thing we can agree on, though, is that there are few things better than getting in a clean, freshly-made bed.
But what about the actual mattress? Do you ever give that a spruce-up? Well, experts have advised that everyone should be vacuuming their mattress every six months in a bid to eliminate dust mites.
Appearing on Dr Alex George's podcast The Waiting Room With Dr Alex, Dyson's vice president of environmental care Alex Knox spoke about when it's time to rid your mattress of creepy crawlies.
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To avoid confusion, let's refer to them as Dr Alex and Dyson Alex.
Dr Alex asked Dyson Alex to detail the best way to clean your mattress, adding: "This one is a bit gross for some people, your mattress isn't the cleanest of places depending on the individual and the mattress.
"Dust mites can be a bit of an issue - those little creatures that live in our mattresses, they can be a hidden enemy."
Dyson Alex replied: "It's a zoo in there [your mattress], you don't want to get a microscope and look at a mattress."
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Dust mites - which are one of the most common allergies and asthma triggers - feed on dead skin cells and we shed quite a lot of that on a weekly basis. Nice.
So Dyson Alex suggested that in order to combat dust mites, and any inconveniences that might come with them, it's good to regularly hoover your mattress in particular.
He explained: "Cleaning your mattress is a good idea. You can just simply vacuum it if you have a powerful vacuum cleaner give it a once over ever sixth months or so. That helps stay on top of that problem and pull out a lot of those skin cells - essentially that dust."
Dust mite breeding season takes place between May and October when the females lay around 60-100 eggs, meaning that dust mites are more common over winter.
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But even as they die off, the materials they produce - including faeces, body parts and saliva - are left behind, which can cause allergy flare ups.
Gem McLuckie, Lead Research Scientist in Microbiology at Dyson, previously said: "As the weather cools, we tend to spend more of our time indoors and ventilate our homes less frequently.
"What's more, dust is light enough to become airborne. When we turn our heating systems on, convectional currents can move dust mite faeces and allergen around the air in our home, which is why many dust mite allergy sufferers may find that their symptoms worsen in the winter months."
You can listen to The Waiting Room With Dr Alex on Apple or on Spotify.
Featured Image Credit: ShutterstockTopics: Science, Bed, Interesting, Community, Health