23 December 2023 , 11:17
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It turns out Christmas pyjamas aren't all fun and games.
Donning a pair of Christmas PJs can be one of the cosiest ways to spend your Christmas day, putting comfort centre-stage whilst injecting a cheerful festive atmosphere to the celebrations with your loved ones. However, one expert has warned that there are a few unpleasant reasons why you shouldn't wear these festive pyjamas to bed to go to sleep, because it can have a myriad of negative impacts on your sleep hygiene and overall health.
Whilst you can wear them all day long without worrying, you may well want to reconsider whether or not your pair of novelty Christmas pyjamas is really appropriate to wear to bed.
The expert - Rebecca Swain from Winston Beds - explains that the main reason that people should avoid wearing these novelty PJs while sleeping is that the material they are often made from isn't really suitable to wear in bed because it's very thick and heavy, which can lead to "sore skin and create an unpleasant odour" - which, let's be frank, just isn't very Christmassy.
Swain adds "While many of us love to get festive and put on matching pyjamas at Christmas, we want to provide a word of caution to those wearing them to sleep. While they can be a great way to keep warm during the chilly weather, our body temperature will naturally rise throughout the night, going beyond the optimum sleeping temperature of 17 to 19 degrees.
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"The thick material can create a sweaty and uncomfortable environment to sleep in which can also welcome nasty critters like dust mites." Waking up with dust mites is not the ideal Christmas present, but this isn't the only issue that can be created by festive pyjamas that could cause you to overheat.
If you're sleeping temperature gets too high, then you will start to sweat to cool down, but this can create an "extremely unhygienic" sleeping environment and the "thick, fleecy materials" often used for festive pyjamas "can cause our skin to become sore and itchy during the night as our body temperatures rise. This can aggravate the skin and lead to rashes."
Not only that but a "foul odour" is likely to linger both in your pyjamas themselves and possibly your bedroom - this is compounded by the fact that it's hard to wash smells out of the fleecy fabrics, the experts claim.
Finally, they can also cause long-term damage to your mattress if worn to bed, because as you sweat in the thick PJs, "the fluids can seep through to the mattress during the night which can damage the material and leave yellow stains, causing your mattress to deteriorate much quicker."
Mattresses are costly to replace, so it may well be worth encouraging the rest of your family to change out of your cosy, matching pyjamas before bed into something cooler.
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