Your pillows are just bags of bugs and their poop

In February, a study from University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, found that too little sleep triggered excessive eating and weight gain, and getting more sleep slashed consumption of carbs and fat, leading to weight loss. Another in June from the University of Chicago, found that getting 4.5 hours of sleep rather than 8.5 ups hunger and appetite, especially in the early afternoon. Takeaway tip: Sleep may be more important than exercise for weight loss. Most of us fall short of the recommended eight nightly hours of slumber, and in addition to your waistline, catching too few zzzzs can also negatively impact immunity and productivity. Make it a focus in the year ahead, and check out these tips to improve your odds. READ: 8 Ways To Get Gorgeous Hair In Your Sleep

he monsters in your nightmares are living and pooping and dying inside your pillow.

Dust mites — lumpy, hairy, fat-bodied, microscopic atrocities — are way worse than you have probably ever cared to think about. And they MITE be (probably are) making you sick.

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These teeny-tiny bugs feast on your dead hair and skin, and according to research, after two years of use, one-third of your pillow’s weight is made up of the species, their droppings and their carcasses.

So if you have three pillows under your bed, and have slept on them for more than two years, congratulations — you’re sleeping on a whole pillow’s worth of bugs and feces every night.

If you have allergies, your pillow hotel for mites is making them worse. If you suffer from asthma, same thing. If you have neither, it’s just a matter of time before the mites irritate your sinuses and make life worse than it already is. The same study showed that 10 percent of people, and 80 percent of allergy sufferers, are allergic to the critters’ waste and their decomposed bodies.

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What can you do? Wash your pillows every six months, wash your pillowcases every week and maybe destroy all your skin and hair, because as long as you have both, the dust mites will always return.