Olympian Tom Daley is the most decorated diver in Britain’s history. He is also an avid knitter. At the Paris 2024 Olympics Daley added a fifth medal to his collection – and caught the world’s attention knitting a bright blue “Paris 24” jumper while travelling to the games and in the stands.

At the Tokyo Olympics, where Daley was first spotted knitting, he explained its positive impact on his mental health.

It just turned into my mindfulness, my meditation, my calm and my way to escape the stresses of everyday life and, in particular, going to an Olympics.

The mental health benefits of knitting are well established. So why is someone famous like Daley knitting in public still so surprising?

Knitting is gendered

Knitting is usually associated with women – especially older women – as a hobby done at home. In a large international survey of knitting, 99% of respondents identified as female.

But the history of yarn crafts and gender is more tangled. In Europe in the middle ages, knitting guilds were exclusive and reserved for men. They were part of a respected Europe-wide trade addressing a demand for knitted products that could not be satisfied by domestic workers alone.

The industrial revolution made the production of clothed goods cheaper and faster than hand-knitting. Knitting and other needle crafts became a leisure activity for women, done in the private sphere of the home.

World Wars I and II turned the spotlight back on knitting as a “patriotic duty”, but it was still largely taken up by women.

During COVID lockdowns, knitting saw another resurgence. But knitting still most often makes headlines when men – especially famous men like Daley or actor Ryan Gosling – do it.

Men who knit are often seen as subverting the stereotype it’s an activity for older women.

Knitting the stress away

Knitting can produce a sense of pride and accomplishment. But for an elite sportsperson like Daley – whose accomplishments already include four gold medals and one silver – its benefits lie elsewhere.

Olympics-level sport relies on perfect scores and world records. When it comes to knitting, many of the mental health benefits are associated with the process, rather than the end result.

Daley says knitting is the “one thing” that allows him to switch off completely, describing it as “my therapy”. https://www.youtube.com/embed/6wwXGOki–c?wmode=transparent&start=0

The Olympian says he could

knit for hours on end, honestly. There’s something that’s so satisfying to me about just having that rhythm and that little “click-clack” of the knitting needles. There is not a day that goes by where I don’t knit.

Knitting can create a “flow” state through rhythmic, repetitive movements of the yarn and needle. Flow offers us a balance between challenge, accessibility and a sense of control.

It’s been shown to have benefits relieving stress in high-pressure jobs beyond elite sport. Among surgeons, knitting has been found to improve wellbeing as well as manual dexterity, crucial to their role.

For other health professionals – including oncology nurses and mental health workers – knitting has helped to reduce “compassion fatigue” and burnout. Participants described the soothing noise of their knitting needles. They developed and strengthened team bonds through collective knitting practices. https://www.youtube.com/embed/dTTJjD_q2Ik?wmode=transparent&start=0 A Swiss psychiatrist says for those with trauma, knitting yarn can be like “knitting the two halves” of the brain “back together”.

Another study showed knitting in primary school may boost children’s executive function. That includes the ability to pay attention, remember relevant details and block out distractions.

As a regular creative practice, it has also been used in the treatment of grief, depression and subduing intrusive thoughts, as well countering chronic pain and cognitive decline.

Knitting is a community

The evidence for the benefits of knitting is often based on self-reporting. These studies tend to produce consistent results and involve large population samples.

This may point to another benefit of knitting: its social aspect.

Knitting and other yarn crafts can be done alone, and usually require simple materials. But they also provide a chance to socialise by bringing people together around a common interest, which can help reduce loneliness.

The free needle craft database and social network Ravelry contains more than one million patterns, contributed by users. “Yarn bombing” projects aim to engage the community and beautify public places by covering objects such as benches and stop signs with wool.

The interest in Daley’s knitting online videos have formed a community of their own.

In them he shows the process of making the jumper, not just the finished product. That includes where he “went wrong” and had to unwind his work.

His pride in the finished product – a little bit wonky, but “made with love” – can be a refreshing antidote to the flawless achievements often on display at the Olympics.

Michelle O’Shea, Senior Lecturer, School of Business, Western Sydney University and Gabrielle Weidemann, Associate Professor in Psychological Science, Western Sydney University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Everyone seems to have a different opinion when it comes to how often towels and bed sheets should be washed. While many people might wonder whether days or weeks is best, in one survey from the United Kingdom, almost half of single men reported not washing their sheets for up to four months at a time.

It’s fairly clear that four months is too long to leave it, but what is the ideal frequency?

Bed linen and towels are quite different and so should be washed at different intervals. While every week or two will generally suffice for sheets, towels are best washed every few days.

Anyway, who doesn’t love the feeling of a fresh set of sheets or the smell of a newly laundered towel?

Why you should wash towels more often

When you dry yourself, you deposit thousands of skin cells and millions of microbes onto the towel. And because you use your towel to dry yourself after a shower or bath, your towel is regularly damp.

You also deposit a hefty amount of dead skin, microbes, sweat and oils onto your sheets every night. But unless you’re a prolific night sweater, your bedding doesn’t get wet after a night’s sleep.

Towels are also made of a thicker material than sheets and therefore tend to stay damp for longer.

So what is it about the dampness that causes a problem? Wet towels are a breeding ground for bacteria and moulds. Moulds especially love damp environments. Although mould won’t necessarily be visible (you would need significant growth to be able to see it) this can lead to an unpleasant smell.

As well as odours, exposure to these microbes in your towels and sheets can cause asthma, allergic skin irritations, or other skin infections.

So what’s the ideal frequency?

For bedding, it really depends on factors such as whether you have a bath or shower just before going to bed, or if you fall into bed after a long, sweaty day and have your shower in the morning. You will need to wash your sheets more regularly in the latter case. As a rule of thumb, once a week or every two weeks should be fine.

Towels should ideally be washed more regularly – perhaps every few days – while your facecloth should be cleaned after every use. Because it gets completely wet, it will be wet for a longer time, and retain more skin cells and microbes.

Wash your towels at a high temperature (for example, 65°C) as that will kill many microbes. If you are conscious of saving energy, you can use a lower temperature and add a cup of vinegar to the wash. The vinegar will kill microbes and prevent bad smells from developing.

Clean your washing machine regularly and dry the fold in the rubber after every wash, as this is another place microbes like to grow.

Smelly towels

What if you regularly wash your towels, but they still smell bad? One of the reasons for this pong could be that you’ve left them in the washing machine too long after the wash. Especially if it was a warm wash cycle, the time they’re warm and damp will allow microbes to happily grow. Under lab conditions the number of these bacteria can double every 30 minutes.

It’s important to hang your towel out to dry after use and not to leave towels in the washing machine after the cycle has finished. If possible, hang your towels and bedding out in the sun. That will dry them quickly and thoroughly and will foster that lovely fresh, clean cotton smell. Using a dryer is a good alternative if the weather is bad, but outdoors in the sun is always better if possible.

Also, even if your towel is going to be washed, don’t throw a wet towel into the laundry basket, as the damp, dirty towel will be an ideal place for microbes to breed. By the time you get to doing your washing, the towel and the other laundry around it may have acquired a bad smell. And it can be difficult to get your towels smelling fresh again.

What about ‘self-cleaning’ sheets and towels?

Some companies sell “quick-dry” towels or “self-cleaning” towels and bedding. Quick-dry towels are made from synthetic materials that are weaved in a way to allow them to dry quickly. This would help prevent the growth of microbes and the bad smells that develop when towels are damp for long periods of time.

But the notion of self-cleaning products is more complicated. Most of these products contain nanosilver or copper, antibacterial metals that kill micro-organisms. The antibacterial compounds will stop the growth of bacteria and can be useful to limit smells and reduce the frequency with which you need to clean your sheets and towels.

However, they’re not going to remove dirt like oils, skin flakes and sweat. So as much as I would love the idea of sheets and towels that clean themselves, that’s not exactly what happens.

Also, excessive use of antimicrobials such as nanosilver can lead to microbes becoming resistant to them.

Rietie Venter, Associate professor, Clinical and Health Sciences, University of South Australia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.