Nigeria’s bedding industry and the health implications to sleep

Living in Africa’s new biggest city, Lagos, harbouring over 21 million people can be likened to being in the midst of a colony of sugar ants, feeding on sweet substances in an enclosure.

Monday through Friday routines cannot be taken for granted because wrong timing, oversleeping, wrong planning and particularly, wrong routes can lead one to face traffic congestions across the length and breadth of the state.

Depending on where you stay, for a working class individual who lives on the mainland and works on the Island, with a 7-8am resumption time, cannot but wake up by 4-4:30am, and at most, leave the house within one hour.

Same thing applies to closing hours; a working class individual with the same route cannot afford to remain in Lekki at few minutes after 5pm. They should be prepared to spend an average of 2-3 hours in traffic.

This routine however, has had an effect on work performances, because for a worker, who has just 12 hours daily to spare, after waking up, will spend approximately 3-5 hours in traffic, and just about 7-8 hours at work.

Ideally, having enough rest is very crucial to our healthy living, but in Lagos, there are more people with sleep debts, owing to the time they go to bed, the time they wake up, and the kind of bed they sleep on.

Sleep is a fundamental pointer to our overall health and well being, because one-third of our lifespan is spent on sleep. But in Lagos, with a lot of hustle and bustle, achieving this can be a major task.

One key factor to sleep debts is how comfortable we are during our sleep, particularly, the kind of bedding textiles we use.

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Although, Nigeria’s textile industries are yet to manufacture beddings, the market is already flooded with imported bedding textiles, both new and used, from countries around the world.

The way Nigerians relate to their sleep and the products they sleep on is very important, because of the role sleep plays in their health.

Some year’s back, Yaba market was one of the major centres to buy beddings, new, used and old. But these textiles are alleged to have loads of toxic substances that are harmful to our skins and lungs, and these beddings are tailored and pushed into the retail market, exposing us to health risks even while we sleep, after a very tedious day.

Ewaen Sorae, CEO & Founder of E’Sorae Luxury Group, in a chat with Ripples Nigeria on the effects of these harmful beddings, informed that Cotton, which is the main component in sheets, is one of the dirtiest crops. It is sprayed with large amounts of pesticides and herbicides during its cultivation, and residue of these chemicals remain in finished textile products.

“Synthetic fabrics aren’t any better. They often contain plastics and other chemicals and the skin can absorb these plastic chemicals during sleep. Many sheets are also treated with chemicals to make them flame retardant, stain resistant or water resistant, and a person can breathe in the vapors from these chemicals”.

Hence, this begs the question: what kind of sheets should one use and where can they be found? Unfortunately, in Nigeria, it is difficult to acquire a non-toxic bedding without a lot of searching and expense.

Sorae stated that, “organic bedding do not always cost an arm and a leg. Most conventional bedding contains many contaminants such as fire-retardant chemicals, Formaldehyde, Boric acid, Toxic dyes, Bleaches, Pesticides, and herbicides. These contaminants are harmful to the body in the long run. It’s also a good idea to avoid synthetic materials. Natural fibers allow for changes in body temperature, because they do not reflect heat and because they can absorb moisture”.

This, he insists, is the reason he began making sheets that are free of toxic materials. And because sleep is one of the most important factors in health, and simply getting more high-quality sleep can often help hormone problems, immune problems and much more.

Ewaen believes that optimizing the area where one sleeps can have dramatic results for overall health, particularly on the middle and low-income earners.

 

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