Ever since humans started wearing clothes, there’s been a long-running debate—one that has sparked arguments between couples for generations and divided bedrooms across the United States. The questions are two-fold: Do you sleep naked? And if you do, is it actually healthy?
A psychologist and sleep expert shared some of the benefits and the one drawback of sleeping completely in the nude. Dr. Michael Breus, who is known as “The Sleep Doctor” on his YouTube channel, offered two reasons why sleeping naked could benefit people. Breus noted that sleeping naked could help a person better regulate their body temperature, leading to better sleep. He also mentioned that sleeping naked with your partner could release oxytocin and reduce anxiety through skin-to-skin contact while you rest.
- YouTube www.youtube.com
However, Breus mentioned one stinky issue that may make germaphobes squirm. At night, we tend to pass gas naturally. That flatulence and its bacteria could get on your bed sheets and your partner without a “barrier”, such as underwear, to block the bacteria from spreading out elsewhere. Breus noted that while wearing underwear would prevent the bacteria from spreading, it’s essential to regularly clean your bed sheets, whether you sleep nude or not.
There are other professional opinions from health experts on the sleeping-naked debate. Many mirror Breus’ warning that sleeping naked could spread bacteria in your bed, but others also backed up the temperature-regulation and oxytocin benefits. Along with that, some doctors say that sleeping naked helps people get to sleep faster, reduces the risk of yeast infections in women, and could potentially boost fertility in men. The consensus on whether sleeping naked is “better” or “worse” from a health standpoint is that there is none.
@phoebeisginger1 please tell me this is normal #fyp #sleep #bed #question #answerme #help
While there are some pros and cons to sleeping nude from a health context, that doesn’t always explain why some folks sleep naked. So why do they? When asked, the folks who sleep in the buff provided their answers on Reddit:
“I used to wear boxers to sleep until I kept waking up in a thong. I've been sleeping naked ever since.”
“I roll over and over all night long, if I have a shirt on, it twists around me and chokes me.”
“My clothes get twisted all over me and when it gets hot in the middle of the night, I can't fix it.”
“I paid for 400 threads. I'm going to use them all.”
“If I fall asleep wearing underwear I will wake up with them off. Same with shirts. I never remember it happening. My body just rejects it.”
“The wife and I have been sleeping naked for our entire married lives (35 years). There's just something about being naked with someone you love for eight hours at a time.”
“I used to sleep in underwear. Then I started waking up naked randomly a few years ago. Then I noticed I'm actually more comfortable naked. I figure my subconscious made the decision, and it wasn't a bad decision.”
@yourboymoyo I cant sleep well any other way! #sleep #sleeping #relatable #bed
So the question in the end doesn’t really seem to be “Should you sleep naked?” but “What makes you comfortable?” If you co-sleep with someone, whatever is comfortable for both of you is the best option. If you sleep alone? Same thing. Whether it’s nothing, underwear, or pajamas, whatever doesn’t get in the way of a full night’s rest seems to be the best recommendation.
Robin Williams performs for military men and women as part of a United Service Organization (USO) show on board Camp Phoenix in December 2007
Gif of Robin Williams via 
A woman conducts a online color testCanva
A selection of color swatchesCanva
A young boy takes a color examCanva 
Pictured: A healthy practice?
Will your current friends still be with you after seven years?
Professor shares how many years a friendship must last before it'll become lifelong
Think of your best friend. How long have you known them? Growing up, children make friends and say they’ll be best friends forever. That’s where “BFF” came from, for crying out loud. But is the concept of the lifelong friend real? If so, how many years of friendship will have to bloom before a friendship goes the distance? Well, a Dutch study may have the answer to that last question.
Sociologist Gerald Mollenhorst and his team in the Netherlands did extensive research on friendships and made some interesting findings in his surveys and studies. Mollenhorst found that over half of your friendships will “shed” within seven years. However, the relationships that go past the seven-year mark tend to last. This led to the prevailing theory that most friendships lasting more than seven years would endure throughout a person’s lifetime.
In Mollenhorst’s findings, lifelong friendships seem to come down to one thing: reciprocal effort. The primary reason so many friendships form and fade within seven-year cycles has much to do with a person’s ages and life stages. A lot of people lose touch with elementary and high school friends because so many leave home to attend college. Work friends change when someone gets promoted or finds a better job in a different state. Some friends get married and have children, reducing one-on-one time together, and thus a friendship fades. It’s easy to lose friends, but naturally harder to keep them when you’re no longer in proximity.
Some people on Reddit even wonder if lifelong friendships are actually real or just a romanticized thought nowadays. However, older commenters showed that lifelong friendship is still possible:
“I met my friend on the first day of kindergarten. Maybe not the very first day, but within the first week. We were texting each other stupid memes just yesterday. This year we’ll both celebrate our 58th birthdays.”
“My oldest friend and I met when she was just 5 and I was 9. Next-door neighbors. We're now both over 60 and still talk weekly and visit at least twice a year.”
“I’m 55. I’ve just spent a weekend with friends I met 24 and 32 years ago respectively. I’m also still in touch with my penpal in the States. I was 15 when we started writing to each other.”
“My friends (3 of them) go back to my college days in my 20’s that I still talk to a minimum of once a week. I'm in my early 60s now.”
“We ebb and flow. Sometimes many years will pass as we go through different things and phases. Nobody gets buttsore if we aren’t in touch all the time. In our 50s we don’t try and argue or be petty like we did before. But I love them. I don’t need a weekly lunch to know that. I could make a call right now if I needed something. Same with them.”
Maintaining a friendship for life is never guaranteed, but there are ways, psychotherapists say, that can make a friendship last. It’s not easy, but for a friendship to last, both participants need to make room for patience and place greater weight on their similarities than on the differences that may develop over time. Along with that, it’s helpful to be tolerant of large distances and gaps of time between visits, too. It’s not easy, and it requires both people involved to be equally invested to keep the friendship alive and from becoming stagnant.
As tough as it sounds, it is still possible. You may be a fortunate person who can name several friends you’ve kept for over seven years or over seventy years. But if you’re not, every new friendship you make has the same chance and potential of being lifelong.