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I have a confession to make: I don\u2019t make my bed. I never saw the point in it; I’m just going to mess up the covers again that night. I don\u2019t spend much time in my bedroom, and my guests don\u2019t spend any, so it\u2019s not as if anyone has to keep looking at my bed\u2019s \u201cdisheveled\u201d appearance during the day. <\/span><\/p>\n I realize that not making your bed has a bit of slovenly shame associated with it. Making your bed seems more organized, more cleanly. In fact, when it comes to daily habits, it even has some cool cache. It\u2019s the kind of foundational habit a four-star naval admiral could base a <\/span>commencement address<\/span><\/a>, and <\/span>book<\/span><\/a>, around, and even claim could very well help you change the world. It\u2019s the kind of habit that makes you feel like a stoic soldier \u2014 an outward behavior that supposedly reflects the tidiness of an equally disciplined mind. <\/span><\/p>\n Given this cool, cleanly cache, I felt surprised (and a little vindicated) when I came across the following passage <\/span>while recently reading<\/span> A Bachelor\u2019s Cupboard<\/span><\/i><\/a> \u2014 a manual for young men on how to live independently published in 1906:<\/span><\/p>\n A woman who, as the mother of several sons, has many young men as guests at her large country house, says she can invariably judge a man from the care he takes of his room. A young man who has been well brought up, she says, never fails to turn back his bedclothes [sheets and blankets] upon arising in the morning. If the clothes, sheets and all, are turned back smoothly over the footboard and the pillows placed near the open window in a convenient chair, she decides that the young man’s mother instilled into him that good breeding which makes neatness and cleanliness and care imperative to his comfort and that of his hostess. She further adds a few remarks on the \u2018fine husband that man is going to make\u2019 who remembers the little things, but they would be out of place in a bachelor book.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n So, the standard for neatness and cleanliness a century back was the opposite of what it is today: rather than pulling his sheets and covers back over his bed up to the headboard, a well-bred gentleman was supposed to drape his bedding over the footboard, leaving both the blankets and the sheet-covered mattress entirely open to the air. Such an airing out was thought to promote freshness and good health (hence why you would also place your pillows by an open window).<\/span><\/p>\n One could chalk up this practice to outdated notions of hygiene. But it triggered a memory in me; I thought I remembered that there was modern research done some years ago that backed up this old idea.<\/p>\n I fired off a google search, and indeed, I had remembered correctly.<\/p>\n