Making the bed could kill you

I, like most people, grew up with a few unshakeable beliefs for how you were supposed to behave. The Goofus and the Gallant's of the world taught me the routine: you wake up early, eat a good breakfast, brush your teeth, and - most importantly - you make your bed. Well, turns out the the way to better living is found in the messiest bedroom you can stomach. Or at least, so says Dr Stephen Pretlove. His research tells us a few interesting things:

1. Making your bed makes it a haven for dust mites, who feed off the moisture and dead skin cells (ick) that gets trapped in the bed after it is made. Leaving it unmade lets the sheets and the mattress dry out and kills off some of the dust mites.
2. The average bed can be home to 1.5M of these little critters - that's roughly one for every Italian that took to the streets to march against the invasion of Iraq.
3. 36 unfortunate "why-did-we-agree-to-do-this-again?" households volunteered to have additional pockets of dust mites planted in their bedrooms while Dr. Pretlove figures out what other formerly-assumed-to-be-virtuous habits they have that are also serving as breeding grounds for mites
4. Mite-induced illnesses include asthma, eczema and a condition called perennial rhinitis, described as being a type of 'year round hayfever'

Suddenly, I'm not super anxious to get to bed anymore.