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Wellness Mama » Blog » Health » Reasons to Choose Natural Bedding

Reasons to Choose Natural Bedding

March 2, 2016 (Updated: July 30, 2019)   —  by Katie Wells

Reasons to choose natural bedding

Reading Time: 4 minThis post contains affiliate links. Click here to read my affiliate policy.

Table of Contents[Hide][Show]
  • Why Sleep Environment is Important
  • Why Choose Natural Bedding
  • Natural Sleep Environment: Other Considerations+−
    • Light and Sound
    • A Good Mattress and Pillow

Over the last decade, as our family has transitioned to a much more natural lifestyle, we’ve had to make baby steps and prioritize based on budget and ability. Filtering our water was a top priority, since it is something we all consume daily, and of course, we prioritize real/organic foods, but finding natural bedding options for sleep was also pretty high on the list.

Why Sleep Environment is Important

We spend roughly a third of our life sleeping, and for this reason, the environment we sleep in has a pretty big impact on overall health. The air we breathe while sleeping, we breathe for a third of our day. The fabric we come in contact with during sleep, we touch for a third of our day. The mattress we sleep on, we interact with for a third of our day. The lights and sounds present during sleep, we see and hear for a third of our day.

When I started researching and working to improve our sleep environments, I was overwhelmed at first. There are so many factors that can impact sleep quality and it took me a long time to finally address them all. Now that I have, we all sleep really, really well (but I feel like we’ve all become sleep snobs and notice that beds aren’t as comfortable when we aren’t at home).

The upside is that optimizing sleep is a relatively easy step to help improve health, in that it only takes effort when we are making the switch, and after that, we can just sleep and reap the benefits. Optimizing the area where we sleep should have the added benefit of improving sleep quality (and hopefully duration too!) which can have dramatic results for overall health.

In fact, some experts point out that sleep is one of the most important factors in health and that simply getting more high-quality sleep can often help hormone problems, immune problems and much more. Personally, when I was actively working to find answers for my Hashimotos and other health problems, sleeping more made the fastest and most noticeable difference.

Why Choose Natural Bedding

I’ve been slowly trying to transition our family to organic fabrics in our clothing and bedding as much as possible after finding out that cotton is one of the dirtiest crops, sprayed with large amounts of pesticides and herbicides during its cultivation and residue of these chemicals remain in finished textile products. Synthetic fabrics often contain plastics and other chemicals, so they aren’t a good option either, as these plastic chemicals can be absorbed by the skin.

Many sheets are also treated with chemicals to make them flame retardant, stain resistant or water resistant, and a person can breathe in the vapors from these chemicals during sleep.

Depending on what clothing is worn (or not worn) during sleep, a person comes in contact with bedding for a relatively large percentage of his or her day, and this is often an easier problem to address than clothing.

Additionally, estimates are that 1-3% of all cotton workers are affected with acute poisoning from the chemicals used on cotton crops and in many places of the world, the textile industry relies on forced or child labor (much like chocolate is) so it is also important to look for fair trade certified cotton.

Thankfully, a good quality organic natural bedding set can last for years, and there are now some great options available. Since we have 8 people in our family to find organic bedding for, I’ve ordered from multiple places and tried a lot of different options. The ones I would recommend are:

  • SOL Organix: Really high quality bedding that is GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standards) certified, organic and fair trade certified. (Save 20% with the code “wellness20”)
  • The Company Store: Has a line of organic sheets, comforters, duvets, shower curtains and towels that are GOTS certified.

I’ve recently found a company called Rough Linen that has great natural bedding (although not cotton or certified organic) made out of homespun linen. Linen is made from Flax, which is typically not a highly sprayed crop and Rough Linen products are another durable/natural option. (Fair warning- as the name suggests, the fabrics are rough, which I prefer, but they aren’t for everyone).

Natural Sleep Environment: Other Considerations

Natural bedding is just one consideration for creating a healthy sleep environment, but it is one of the easiest to address. Some other factors I addressed in our home are:

Light and Sound

There is more and more emerging evidence that artificial light, especially blue light, can impact sleep patterns and circadian rhythms. Some of the steps I took in our home to create healthy light patterns are:

  • Using blackout curtains in bedrooms to block artificial light from outside sources like street lights and headlights.
  • Wearing orange glasses at night to block blue light from phones/computers and other sources.
  • Removing electronics and other objects that have lights from our bedrooms

Sound can also benefit sleep (or make it more difficult). Many people benefit from sound machines, but some types of white noise may actually create a stress response.

A Good Mattress and Pillow

Finding a good mattress that worked for us and that was non-toxic was a long and frustrating process. Once we finally found one that worked we are sleeping so much better. This post chronicles all of the options we tried and the mattress we finally chose. I have also been sleeping with a Wakewell pillow as I like how I can customize the different “zones” of the pillow and can personalize to fit my head and my sleeping position.

Do you have natural bedding? How have you created a healthy sleep environment in your home?

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About Katie Wells

Katie Wells, CTNC, MCHC, Founder and CEO of Wellness Mama and Co-Founder of Wellnesse, has a background in research, journalism, and nutrition. As a wife and mom of six, she turned to research and took health into her own hands to find answers to her health problems. WellnessMama.com is the culmination of her thousands of hours of research and all posts are medically reviewed and verified by the Wellness Mama research team. Katie is also the author of the bestselling books The Wellness Mama Cookbook and The Wellness Mama 5-Step Lifestyle Detox.

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Reader Interactions

Discussion (72 Comments)

  1. Laurie

    March 16, 2016 at 11:52 PM

    Check out Samina bedding, all natural wool beds hand made in Austria. Expensive, but quality sleep is priceless.

    Reply
  2. Tricia Rose

    March 10, 2016 at 7:07 PM

    Thank you so much, Katie for this well-researched article!

    As you said, linen is a much more eco-friendly option than cotton – it uses far less water and chemicals, being something of a “cottage-crop,” provides bio-diversity. However, aside from its many eco-merits, I love linen for other reasons. Its soft, silky texture only gets softer with time, but it lasts and lasts. Yes, the “Orkney” linen is very textured, but our “smooth” linen is very flat and soft, and will please even the most sensitive skin. And the light airiness is unique to linen – even the finest cottons will never compare. I hope you enjoy your Rough Linen bedding. We’d love to see images! – Tricia

    Reply
  3. Alicia

    March 6, 2016 at 6:48 PM

    We’re steadily swapping in non-toxic, natural options for our bedroom. The two pieces we began with that changed our game significantly were buying medium-loft wool-filled pillows and a 4″ thick wool-filled mattress topper. Both were from a U.S.-based brand that makes their items one at a time, employing organic, unbleached/untreated wool, encased in organic, unbleached/untreated cotton.

    We sleep better, breath better, and never sweat with these breathing, lovely pieces. We’re now spoiled, and have had to travel with our pillows. We hope to get rid of our standard mattress and swap in a wool or wool-natural latex combo soon. Between this and our untreated linen sheets, I cannot recommend de-toxifying one’s bedroom enough!

    Reply
    • sophia

      June 16, 2017 at 5:16 PM

      Love your Daria photo!! Where did you purchase your mattress topper and pillows?

      Reply
  4. Laura Wren

    March 6, 2016 at 4:16 PM

    I love Bollar and Branch sheets.. Sleeping so good since we invested money into them! I have tried many but these are my favorite!

    Reply
  5. Christine H

    March 6, 2016 at 3:17 PM

    I am in dire need of a cooling mattress pad cover. I tried the one that was recommended on a link you posted in your article about organic mattresses from Amazon. It is very plush and cozy for the winter, but it sleeps really hot, I wake up on fire almost every night.

    I’ve just moved to North Carolina from Colorado and am very concerned about the hot, humid summer. I need something to keep my bed cool so I can sleep. Any suggestions would be very appreciated.

    Reply
    • Brenda

      November 11, 2016 at 2:47 PM

      I can recommend a mattress cover that will truly keep you cool, but I don’t think it is organic or non-toxic. It is almost all cotton though. It is from the Sleep Number store – I do not recall the name (I am not at home at the moment), but I think it was labeled a “cooling” mattress cover. It really works – the sheets are always cool, all through the night.

      Reply
  6. Stefanie

    March 6, 2016 at 1:58 PM

    Coyuchi has great sheets too. And Under the Nile has really awesome organic cotton blankets that are fleece like and super soft. My daughter has the twin sized one that she loves. Even my little dog has the baby blanket that he sleeps on every night on top of the bed! And we have a king sized one.

    Also, Wildridge Healthy Living sells wonderful wool pillows and mattress toppers. I buy them from the natural news site when they have a sale. Free shipping also.

    Reply
  7. Kavita Goyal

    March 6, 2016 at 1:12 PM

    This is a nice article. As mentioned in the post we spend almost a third of our day sleeping, but never thought of having a natural bed to enhance the quality of sleep.

    Nice thought. Keep up posting such articles.

    Reply
  8. Kristin

    March 6, 2016 at 12:37 PM

    You do not need to spend 2k to get a natural mattress. 100% Natural Dunlop latex foam and an organic wool and cotton cover from sleepez. Its flippable, firm on one side and medium on the other. $895. And the intellibed contains polyurethane foam. Never going to be 100% guaranteed no VOC. There are tons of 100% latex mattresses out there for less than this that naturally have no VOCs that you can flip so you’re not sleeping in a crater for way less than this.

    Reply
  9. Amanda w

    March 6, 2016 at 11:03 AM

    What do you think of targets organic sheets?

    Reply
    • Wellness Mama

      March 6, 2016 at 2:01 PM

      I haven’t tried them…

      Reply
    • katherine brady

      March 6, 2016 at 2:13 PM

      Look up the company to see where they’re from

      Reply
  10. Hannah

    March 6, 2016 at 10:46 AM

    Coyuchi is one of the BEST organic bedding and bath companies! I LOVE the quality of their products. I am very chemically sensitive and have had nothing but the best with them. If you can’t handle any dyes at all everything in their color “natural” is completely untreated.

    Reply
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