Can Making Your Own Bed Fit to Lie Upon Be a Prescription for Mental Health?
Can Making Your Own Bed Fit to Lie Upon Be a Prescription for Mental Health?
No, I’m not a scientist, just a theoretician, highly unlicensed. My laboratory is my bedroom. My medicine is my bed. My patients are myself and my wife.
And on World Mental Health Day, I developed a hypothesis based on personal research that there is much mental benefit in monotony, if it’s nice and tidy.
That is my theory and the thought occurred to me on the morning of 10/10 as I was making our bed for the X-thousandth time.
I could feel that it was somehow reinforcing my mental wellbeing pulling those covers back up over the pillows, both requiring emergency puffing up.
After a pummeling by two sleepy heads the night before, poor battered pillows need resuscitation to be pillowy prepared and inviting for night.
Doing the same familiar pulls, twists and tugs somehow produces a calming effect and once every wrinkle and crease is straightened, smoothed out and flattened in place, there is a brief sense of accomplishment in having restored that messy, slept-in bed of ours back to serenity and health.
Yes, this habitual exercise made me think of mental health derived from doing something that restores, repairs, replenishes and reinvigorates, not just for yourself, but for that significant other with whom one blissfully sleeps each night in comfort and safety in that ultimate place of sanctuary—our bed.
It all begins each morning by making thy bed to lie in that coming night.
Is there any science to support such a bedtime theory?
Probably not, but I can assure you there is something that I believe is mentally rewarding in making your bed.
Well, now another day starts and the action begins, but I know that our bed will be waiting all made-up and ready to receive us as a fitting cap to another busy day.
Happy World Mental Health to all . . . and to all a good night!
Thomas Madden
About the Author: Tom Madden is an author of countless published articles and five books, including his latest, WORDSHINE MAN, available on Amazon. He also creates TV series like his latest Xtra Terresla whose main character is modeled after Tesla founder Leon Musk. He has another TV series in the works called Mar-a-Lago Empire. Madden is the founder and CEO of TransMedia Group, an award-winning public relations firm serving clients worldwide since 1981.
