70% of Happy People Do This When They Wake Up. |The Art of Doing Stuff

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I don’t like going to bed. Nor do I like getting out of it. It’s a conundrum.

My office desk is exactly 7 feet away from my bedroom. Every time I leave my office to go downstairs or outside this is what I see. Comfortable bed, napping cat, linen bedding, fluffy duvet …

It’s not that much of a temptation in the summer, but in this gutter of a season we call late winter – it’s as persuasive as a late night infomercial to an insomniac. I’ve only succumbed to the temptation once or twice and the main reason for that is not my military-like discipline. It’s the fact that my bed is already made.

If it were all a jumble of sheets and pillowy down I might be more likely to swan dive into it. But it’s made, so I continue on with my day instead of curling up to sleep. Pulling back the covers and getting into an already made bed in the middle of the day is pathetic. Whereas falling into one that’s still an unmade mess is just practical. Smartly taking advantage of a situation, really – I mean when you think about it.

That’s reason number 1 to make your bed in the morning. The other billion reasons all lead to happiness.

According to a study by Hunch.com only 27% of people make their bed. Which is too bad because

70% of people who make their beds consider themselves to be happy.

Happiness expert, Gretchen Rubin; The Power of Habit author Charles Duhigg; and US Navy Admiral William H. McRaven all believe in the POWER of making your bed.

Gretchen Rubin says making your bed is also one of the most effective and easiest triggers of happiness.

Charles Duhigg describes making your bed every morning as a “keystone habit”. A way to kick start a pattern of good behaviour for the rest of the your day, week, month, life.

But most impressive is US Navy Admiral William H. McRaven’s commencement speech. Here’s just a little bit of it …

And yet, according to this random study that everyone on the Internet (including Psychology Today) has cited … less than 1/3rd of us make our beds.

Here’s the problem.

I can’t find any evidence of this study online. Anywhere. Everyone has cited it and even linked to it but it’s nowhere to be found. The Hunch.com study apparently polled 66,000 people to come up with these statistics.

Is it a made up poll? Was it inaccurate and therefore the whole website was forced to shut down, the researchers currently hiding under their covers? Who knows. Another poll done by the US government found that 37% of people make their beds regularly. They also seem to have found some sort of correlation between income and bed making.

The more money you make, the more likely you are to make your bed every day.

I do believe there’s something to be said for making your bed every morning if only to make getting into at night more inviting.

Of course now I have to conduct my own completely unscientific, random, probably riddled with errors poll.

Do you make your bed every day?

I do. And I consider myself to be happy.

My guess would be that more than 27% of people make their bed. But what do I know? I was shocked and alarmed to discover we’re basically living in a word of closet nudists.

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