There is no worse bug infestation than that of the evil little bedbug. This hearty little anthropoid spends its time eating/sucking your blood while you sleep! What can be worse than that!

I wanted to write this article before the Summer Vacation season to ensure everyone was ready and informed on how to keep bedbugs from coming home with you on your travels this year. Every year, starting in May and ending in September, we have many customers complaining about getting rid of bedbugs, replacing mattresses, and asking how to keep bedbugs from returning.

Keeping bedbugs from coming home with you this vacation season isn’t that challenging. First, admit that no hotel level is excluded from bedbug infestations. The best hotel on earth could and will at some point have…bedbugs.

Second, do yourself a favor, don’t put your suitcases, travel bags, etc., on the bed or floor. Instead, place your bags in the bathtub. Take apart the linens on your bed and inspect the seams of the mattress. If there is any sign of bedbugs, ask for another room (in another state).

Third, even if you’ve taken the precautions above, it is best to take precautions when you get home.

When you get home, do NOT put your bags on your bed. Instead, place them in the bathtub. Take all your clothing, dirty or otherwise and place it in the dryer for 45 minutes in de-wrinkle mode (this will kill the nits and eggs).

Another precaution you should take is to make sure you’ve bought and installed a full encasement mattress protector. A full encasement protector goes all the way around your mattress, and it’s designed to keep bedbugs from being able to hide in the seams of your bed and makes it way easier to detect and kill the bedbugs before they become a full infestation. Whenever we have a customer who says anything about traveling often, we tell them a fully encasing mattress protector is a must.

Who doesn’t have stress these days, from news to work to life in general? We’ve started moving so fast that sometimes we don’t know if we’re coming or going.

This issue with living life this way is it can quickly start affecting parts of your health that you really should be keeping an eye on. Our company sells sleep, we specialize in helping you find the right bed for you to find better sleep, and with that comes research into what is bothering our customers the most.

People are suffering from overstressing, aside from having an all-around lousy mattress. We’re all battling to keep control over a faster-paced life, and it’s starting to affect our sleep significantly.

Reducing stress can be a hard ask of yourself, but it isn’t. You can reduce stress by adding something as simple as an afternoon walk, or a few minutes of exercise, meditation, or even finding a hobby that you enjoy and can find some escape time.

Do you wake up with pain in your neck? Do you develop headaches during midafternoon? These are both signs of having the wrong size pillow. Something as simple as having the wrong pillow can cause lasting or daily pain.

The right pillow can not only eliminate neck pain and headaches, but it can also help you breathe easier throughout the night, helping you get better, deeper sleep. The better your sleep, the better your next day is, and the better your overall health is.

 

Finding the right pillow for you is not that complicated, but you can’t do it without being able to lay on a mattress that matches the support level you have at home. Buying a pillow without laying down to check out your posture can lead to making the same buying mistakes over and over.

Once you’ve found a mattress on the sales floor of your favorite pillow store ( BTW, Live Well has an extensive assortment of pillows), grab a pillow that matches the loft you need. The loft is the height of the pillow, the actual support part of the pillow.

• If you are a side sleeper, you need a mid-loft pillow to a high loft pillow, depending on your shoulder width.
• If you are a stomach sleeper, you need either a low loft pillow or no pillow to make sure your neck and lower back don’t hyperextend.
•  If you are a back sleeper, you have a choice of low loft pillows or mid loft pillows. Look for a pillow that keeps your head in a position matching your standing posture.

Your goal while shopping for a pillow is to keep your posture matching your standing posture. Any more tilt to your head than that can cause posture issues, neck pain, and, like we said above, headaches.

If you’d like to get fit for the right pillow, please don’t hesitate to visit us at Live Well. We’ve studied, researched, and learned many different techniques in getting your pillow just right.