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We all want to make a relationship work–and ever better, for an entire lifetime! Sadly, the fact is that a lot of relationships don’t make it that far. You likely want to do everything you can to avoid having your partnership meet that fate!

Many strive to discover the secret to a happy relationship, and the answer is more complicated than just one be-all-end-all! Here’s how psychologists explain four things that make a relationship work.

1.    Positive Thinking Helps Make a Relationship Work

Positive thinking is a powerful thing, capable of completely changing your perception of any given situation. It’s also something you need to have if you want to keep a relationship healthy.

This has to be a mutual choice between both partners in the relationship, says Licensed Psychotherapist, author, and radio show host Barton Goldsmith. Both of you have to decide to control how you carry yourselves to promote more positive behavior and manage moods together as a team.

Here are some tips for developing positive thinking that can help make your relationship work:

·         Approach Problems With A Positive Mindset

When there’s a conflict or severe issue, pause and breathe before launching straight into combat mode. With positive motivation, problems are more likely to be solved through compromise and open-mindedness, says Monte Drenner, a licensed mental health counselor.

·         Share Positive Events In Your Life

When good things happen, seek out your partner and tell them about it. Numerous studies have found that sharing these positive points in your life – especially when you feel excited to tell your partner the great news – can facilitate a stronger bond.

·         Foster Good Self-Worth

Positive thinking applies to each partner, too. You must have healthy self-worth that isn’t attached to having a partner or how your partner makes you feel. If you rely too much on your partner for happiness, things will fall apart pretty quickly! You need to feel secure enough in yourself that other people’s opinions don’t damage your self-esteem, says School of Love NYC founder and dating coach Monika Parikh.

·         Reminisce On Times Of Laughter

Did you know that studies have shown that laughing together and then looking back on that laughter together is great for a relationship? Dr. Megan Stubbs, a relationship and intimacy expert, states that asking each other about your favorite happy memories together is a great way to begin reminiscing. The shared emotions and memories bring you together and can even make you think of the future to come.

2.    Communication Can Make a Relationship Work

There’s a reason that so many people say communication is the secret to a happy relationship. No human being can read minds, so you need to talk to your partner about different concerns you have or opinions you hold, says Goldsmith.

·         Share Your Downs

Being vulnerable can be scary, but it’s part of communication. Your partner can’t know how you feel if you don’t tell them. Licensed psychologist, Rapport Relationships founder, and dating coach, Dr. Jennifer B. Rhodes, even goes so far as to state that letting down your guard can be a huge part of intimacy as a whole.

·         Don’t Make Assumptions

No matter how well you believe, you know your partner, making assumptions is a surefire way to land yourself in confusing misunderstandings. Lasting Connections founder and psychologist Sameera Sullivan points out that mind reading in this manner can be dangerous and that it’s much better to ask instead of assuming to avoid hurting anyone in the process.

·         Talk About Boundaries

Knowing your limits is essential in a relationship, and many relationships will suffer from silence and ignoring these problems than they will ever suffer from violence, says Parikh. Don’t ignore your partner’s crossing of limits or things that hurt you. Talk about them and be direct and clear about where your boundaries are. Don’t become compliant. Avoiding a fight isn’t as positive as it sounds, and couples that fight healthily and regularly often have a stronger relationship. You should feel comfortable discussing these things with your partner; if not, that could be a huge red flag.

3.    Positive Reinforcement

Reinforcement is the act of continuing to make it clear that you love and appreciate your partner. It’s easy to accidentally fall out of the habit of being sweet and romantic to someone you’ve been in a relationship with for years and years.

But leaving the honeymoon phase doesn’t mean the sweetness should end, says Goldsmith. If anything, you need to continue working on your relationship forever, and you shouldn’t become complacent in the way you show your affection. Here are some ways to make sure positive reinforcement is still a part of your relationship:

·         Encourage And Support Your Partner

Offering words of encouragement shows that you think of your partner’s experiences and pay attention to what they’re going through. Expressing admiration at their improvements or successes and being supportive in more challenging times tells your partner that you care.

·         Surprise Your Partner Now And Then

These surprises show you’re thinking of your partner outside of the typical red-letter days. Clinical psychologist Joshua Klapow, Ph.D., also The Kurre and Klapow Show’s host, recommends tangible romantic gestures. Instead of sending emails or texts, buy tiny gifts, write small letters, or help them check something off their to-do list!

·         Schedule A Date Night

Date nights are a break from mundane, everyday life, states Maple Holistics Health and Wellness Expert Caleb Backe. You’re choosing to spend quality time with your partner outside of your daily life. They’re your partner in relaxation and the hustle and bustle. Plus, it’s fun to get that time to yourselves to hang out! It spices things up. You get to talk to each other and rekindle a spark. There’s no denying the positive effects these dates have, so make them a regular thing!

·         Hold Hands In Public

Klapow recommends that you and your partner hold hands in public – just like you did when you first began dating! This act is intimate but public, a display that you and your partner are together. It’s also a natural way to bond through touch while indicating that you are happily there for your partner, always!

·         Kiss Each Other More Often

When you first started courting your significant other, kissing was probably a highlight of your dates. As time goes on, in most relationships, make-out sessions are replaced by quick, chaste pecks on the lips or a kiss on the cheek. Sarah A. Intelligator, a Family Law lawyer and owner of the Law Offices of Sarah A. Intelligator, recommends that you never stop kissing each other as you did before. When you eliminate these heated shows of affection, you’re subconsciously sending the message that your partner is less desirable to you, and that can sour intimacy and fun.

·         Keep Romance Alive

Just because you’re comfortable with each other doesn’t mean you shouldn’t still flirt and be sappy partners in love! Keep buying flowers. Keep doing romantic things. Be embarrassingly romantic. Act like you’re still in the early “chase” stages of your relationship. You’d be surprised how much that can help keep the spark alive!

4.    Be Your People

When you’ve been with someone for a very long time, it’s easy to slip into a state where you don’t do anything without the other. You become almost interchangeable and, in the worst-case scenario, could get codependent.

This is very unhealthy because the common idea that a partnership is two halves making a whole is not accurate. A partnership is two whole people coming together out of love and appreciation. Your entire life shouldn’t be about your partner, and you shouldn’t be relying on them to give you everything you need. That’s too much pressure for anyone, and it’s blatantly unfair to yourself, too.

Here are some tips for being your own person while still being a unified couple in a relationship:

·         Give Each Other Space

Everyone needs alone time. Even the happiest couples need individual time to themselves, says Parikh. Learn to be comfortable and feel positive without your partner next to you at all times. Lead your own life! Have your own hobbies! Have your own me-time! And of course, respect that your partner also needs all of that, too.

·         Assess Yourself And Grow On Your Own

You need to be a strong person on your own, continually learning and growing with the years, to maintaining a healthy relationship. Your partner should be doing the same. That’s why you need to evaluate and assess yourself, says Amy Bishop, M.S., a couples therapist. There’s no denying that even the very best people can have negative or questionable behavior. We all have toxic or bad sides to us because we’re human and flawed. Your job is to continue learning from your mistakes and being aware of the things you need to work on. Put effort into growing and developing as a person, and your relationship will grow, mature, and become healthier with you. Don’t let your pride stop you from acknowledging your weaknesses!

·         Have Separate Friends

According to research, the least positive relationships most likely to fall apart are those where you have all the same mutual friends. Think about it – you have the same support group and have no social circles of your own, which is far from a positive factor. Worse still, if the relationship falls apart, the friend group is caught in an uncomfortable situation. Mutual friends are good, but have separate circles on top of that, too!

·         Take Care Of Yourself

You’re a grown adult, and you don’t need another human being to look out for you all the time. You get to decide what you want and need and how to spend your time. Yes, you should take your partner into account when your decisions or actions affect them. But if it’s just about you, then be independent! You don’t need your partner to help you with everything or be there for every second of your life, says Parikh. Having one person as your only go-to is toxic for them and for you. Besides, you can always tell your partner about your individual adventures later!

Final Thoughts On Some Things That Make A Relationship Work

Making a relationship works takes effort. You need to stay positive, communicate well, make sure your partner knows you love them, and continue to work on yourself. It might not be easy, but if you love the person you’re dating or married to, it’s certainly worth it!

Do you find that you think too much? When you overthink, you analyze everything to the point of anxiety. If you think you may be doing this, check out these ten indicators of overthinking and how they can be harmful to you. Later, we will share some tips to combat the cycle of overthinking to help you rebalance your state of mind.

What is overthinking?

The tendency to overthink means you have an abundance of thoughts that never work out into real action. These overactive thoughts produce nothing but stress and worry. You may worry about what happened in the past or what’s going to happen in the future. Overthinking is usually about things you can’t control. Thinking too much can be paralyzing and lead to an anxiety disorder. Consider these ten red flags you may see in your life if you’re struggling with overthinking.

1 – Lack of focus due to racing thoughts.

When you’re continually examining your thoughts, actions, and conversations, your thoughts get in the way of your ability to concentrate on your daily activities. Your ideas may weigh so heavily upon you that you become distracted from real-life responsibilities. If your thoughts interfere with your daily life tasks, it’s a red flag. Step back and figure out how to let go of thoughts that prevent you from living your life.

2 – Your thoughts interfere with your work.

One study discovered that when athletes overthink, it disrupts their performance. It’s no wonder because when you overthink, you examine every action you make. This introspection causes you to second guess and doubts your ability to do things. A trained athlete relies on their mental and physical ability to perform. In the same way, if your mind is distracted, and you doubt your abilities, you won’t be able to do your work. This process can be disruptive to your job. This is a big red flag indicating that you’re overthinking things.

3 – Not paying attention to the people in your life.

Overthinking causes you to be caught up in your world most of the time. You aren’t fully there for others because of your all-consuming thoughts. Overthinking causes you to think more about yourself than others. When you’re with others, you may be distracted by views like this:

• How do I feel right now?
• Why do I feel like this?
• Does this person like me?
• They look sad. It’s probably because of me.
• What did I do wrong?
• Are they mad at me?

This rumination is a self-consuming way to live. You are not paying rapt attention to what others are saying or feeling. People may perceive you as uncaring or thoughtless, even though you aren’t. Overthinking is detrimental to your relationship with friends and family because it causes you to live in your head.

4 – What’s real?

Researchers found that overthinking interferes with your long term memory. As you rehearse things over and over, what happened gets rewritten in your mind.  Things begin to look worse than they were when you rehearse them in your mind. It is easy to put a negative spin on the past. So what happened seems utterly different from what really happened, yet you believe your version of the situation. It’s a twisted web that affects your thoughts and feelings.

5 – Feel nervous all the time

Overthinking can make you feel always nervous. Your thoughts feel out of control and overwhelming. Being consumed with these thoughts steals your ability to relax. Your nervousness is unhealthy and could make you sick. Taking control of your thoughts is critical to avoid feeling nervous all the time.

6 – Physical ailments

Overthinking can lead to an anxiety disorder. Researchers have found that some physical illnesses are caused by anxiety and stress. These ailments include

• Headaches
• Ulcers
• Irritable bowel syndrome
• Strange aches and pains
• Insomnia
• High blood pressure
• Chest pain
• Panic attacks

If you’re having these physical problems and you think it could be related to your overthinking, be sure to speak with your doctor. They can diagnose the physical issues and help you find strategies to slow down your overactive thoughts.

7 – Fatigue

Your overthinking makes you feel as if the weight of the world is on your shoulders. This mental exhaustion leads to fatigue since your brain has no time to rest. Mental burnout causes extreme tiredness. All your introspection and constant thinking solve nothing, but it hurts you the most.

8 – Your rehash conversations

Rehashing your conversations with other people is a red flag indicating you’re overthinking.  Do you rehearse every word, every smile, or eyebrow that moved during your discussions? Do you feel that you must understand everything the person said in case you missed something?

This rehashing of conversations twists your brain and makes you feel emotionally draining. These thoughts are harmful to you and could lead to an anxiety disorder. If you find yourself doing this a lot, you may consider possibly speaking to a counselor to help you figure out why, precisely, you are doing this.

9 – Insomnia

Insomnia can be a side effect of an overly active brain. If you’re an overthinker, your mind may race, even at night. In fact, night time can exaggerate your fears. That’s when you’re most vulnerable to worry. When your sleep is interrupted nightly, it affects your ability to function, plus it clouds your thoughts even more.

10 – Overanalyzing everything

When you think too much, you probably tend to overanalyze people’s every action and word. If you walk past a friend who doesn’t look at you right away,  you assume they’re mad at you. You start to remember things you’ve said and wondered if you made them angry. You begin to worry that they’ll never speak to you again. Your snowballing thoughts run wild. It’s consuming and centers on what you did wrong.

How can you stop overthinking?

There are some helpful new habits you can try to break free from overthinking. When your thoughts start to run wild into all the possible things that could happen, stop, and ask yourself these questions.

• Is what I’m thinking right now true?
• Will these thoughts help me or make me feel bad?
• How could I look at this situation in a positive way?
• What are the chances that what I’m thinking could happen?

Here are some other helpful tools to break free from thinking too much.

 1 – Focus on what’s good

When you’re tempted to overthink and expect bad things, instead, turn your thoughts to what is right. Think of all the positive outcomes in life that could (and have) happened. Remember, you control your thoughts. Your thoughts don’t control you. Refuse to permit your mind to go to the scary what-if scenarios. Tell your thoughts who’s boss and focus on the good in your life.

 2 – Distract yourself

Having excess time on your hands isn’t helpful if you have a busy mind. Too much time allows time for your mind to run wild. Stay active, don’t let yourself idle time to just sit and think. Interact with people, go to events, or volunteer at your local library. Find ways to serve others, so you’re not focusing on yourself.

3 – Control is overrated

There are many scenarios in life that can’t be controlled, but there are things within your control. It’s part of life. Focusing on what you can’t control isn’t helpful, and it can lead to anxiety. Instead, focus on what outcomes you can control, like your attitude and your choices. Try to remember that you’re not the only one who feels like life gets out of control. Everyone has those moments. Many people find that having faith in God helps them. They believe they can trust God to help them through those uncontrollable situations. Take a deep breath and relax. Let go of what you can’t control.

4 – Loosen fear’s grip

Fear is a tyrant. It enables you to think too much about your failures or your potential failures. It’s easy to focus on all the ways you’ve messed up. But everyone fails. Failure is a big part of life. Let go of your fear of falling again or failing in the future. Refuse to let fear control your thoughts. See your failures as opportunities to have a new beginning.

5 – Journal writing helps you release your thoughts

Writing down all your thoughts is a great way to get your overthinking in control. Dumping those fearful, anxious thoughts on paper releases them from your brain. Tell yourself that once your opinions hit the paper, they stay there. No more thinking about them. If you want to reread the thoughts later, that’s okay, but don’t allow yourself to think about them again.

6 – Talk to a friend

Find a trusted friend or confidante to talk to about your overthinking. Explain to your friend when you’re prone to overthinking thinking. No doubt,  they’ve already noticed that you do this.  Just talking about overthinking with someone else can help you begin to let it go.

7 – Find community

Finding a good community can help you refocus. It keeps you busy being with and helping others instead of being alone with your thoughts. Find a church, yoga group, or running club where you can make good friends who share similar goals.

Final Thoughts: Now That You Know You Think Too Much, Take Action

Everybody over thinks things once in a while, but if your brain is always on hyper-drive,  it could be harmful to your health. Overthinking can lead to anxiety disorders, which can affect your health. If you think too much, use these suggested tools to stop the progression of overthinking. Try a couple of these ideas at first and add more over time. Remember, you’re in control of your thoughts, not the other way around. Enjoy the freedom of letting go of those things you can’t control and enjoy your life without an overactive mind.

Have you ever had vivid dreams? These are the dreams that are so real that you wake up feeling shaken or like you’re stuck in a fantasy realm. Some people try to interpret their dreams, and many think that the spirit world is trying to communicate with them in this realm.

While your higher power can communicate with you through dreams, there are also many other reasons why you might be having these vivid displays. To gain a better knowledge of why your eyelids become a movie screen at night, you must understand your sleep cycles.

The Five Stages of Sleep

During the first phase of sleep, you are in twilight or a light stage of rest. Though your brain frequency has slowed a bit, your muscles are still responsive. During the second phase, your body goes a bit deeper, and it’s more difficult to wake you.

Stage three is slow-wave sleep as an EEG of the brain shows that your brain waves are slowing down drastically. A noise of up to 100 decibels won’t disturb you during the third level. Delta waves are stage four, and it’s the last level before you head into REM sleep.

If you awaken in stage three or four, you will be quite groggy and may feel like you’re stuck in a sleep/wake realm. It will take you some time for your brain to reengage with being awake so that you may feel off for several minutes.

The third and final stage of sleep is REM. During this phase, your muscles don’t move, and your breathing becomes erratic and irregular. Your heart rate will increase a bit, but you won’t notice it.

You will also experience vivid dreams during this phase as your body is entirely under a brain induced state of muscle atonia. If your mind didn’t put you in a coma-like state, then you could hurt yourself or others.

When people experience disturbances during REM, they can have night terrors, sleepwalk, or act out things happening in their dreams. This is often caused by improper signals sent from the brain to the body.

10 Reasons Why You Have Vivid Dreams

Now that you understand the sleep cycles, you can understand the time frame of when you will experience vivid dreams. However, you still don’t know what causes them. Numerous things can cause your dreams to be so real they are haunting, but here are the top ten.

1. Medications

Did you know that medications can alter your sleep and cause you to have vivid dreams? The most common medications that can affect your REM state are blood pressure drugs, antidepressants, smoking cessation medicines, and things used to treat Parkinson’s disease.

Even some herbal over-the-counter meds can negatively impact your sleep too. Melatonin is notorious for causing vivid dreams, even though it’s completely safe.

2. Stress or Anxiety

All the difficulties you have during the day can bother your subconscious at night. Significant events such as weddings, arguments with family members, divorce, or buying a new home can trigger vivid dreaming.

Stress is inevitable, but the trauma of the day can affect you when you rest. Anxiety, sexual abuse, or a car accident can be relived time and time again in your REM sleep. When you have disturbing or intense nightmares, trauma is almost always to blame.

3. Substance Abuse

Using drugs for recreational use like heroin, meth, cocaine, and opiates can negatively impact your sleep. The most common time to experience such dreams is when you are trying to withdrawal from these drugs. The withdrawal period can be quite intense, and your brain is struggling to find a new normal.

4. Mental Health Disorders

Have you ever awakened from you a dream in a state of panic? Depression causes colorful dreams, and they can lead to panic attacks. However, these are not the only mental health issues that are a concern.

People with schizophrenia or a dissociative identity disorder can also have vivid dreams from their medications or when they stop taking drugs. Those who already experience hallucinations or delusions seem to slip into the lucid dreaming state with ease.

Of all the mental health issues, anxiety seems to be the problem that causes the most REM dreams. A person with anxiety is always in a state of angst, and this state is not alleviated by sleep for many.

5. Physical Illness

Many physical illnesses can cause you to dream more frequently. While you may not remember many of them, you can have some lurid encounters. If you have diabetes and your blood sugar drops to a low level, you can have some intense dreams.

6. Pregnancy

Colorful dreams and nightmares are commonplace during pregnancy. At times, the strain of arranging for the birth of the child contributes to these occurrences. Variations of hormones may also play a part in why women dream so much during pregnancy.

7. Alcohol

Many people drink alcohol because they feel it helps them get to sleep. While it may enhance your rest, it can suppress the REM or vital part of your slumber.

The vivid dreams are even more remarkable when a person stops drinking and tries to maintain sobriety. Thankfully, intense dreams will eventually pass.

8. Narcolepsy

Individuals with narcolepsy frequently say that they vividly dream. Sadly, many describe the encounters as strange or even disturbing. Narcolepsy is a disorder that confuses the barriers of slumber and alertness.

Folks with this ailment feel extraordinarily sleepy and exhausted during the day. Warning Signs include falling to sleep quickly and suffering an abrupt loss of muscle control. A person with narcolepsy will go into REM moments after falling asleep.

Even a small nap can cause the individual with narcolepsy to start having bright dreams. Also, lucid dreaming is not uncommon, so a person cannot distinguish between being awake or asleep.

9. Sleep Deprivation

Anytime you are short on rest, your body can experience crazy dreams. Part of the issue is that the body is so tired it skips over the four stages of sleep and goes right to REM. This is commonly observed in people who have insomnia, sleep apnea, or just haven’t got enough sleep.

10.Foods You Eat Specifically Spicy Ones

While there’s not a great deal of science behind this theory, it’s believed that spicy foods can mess with your sleep. When you eat anything filled with spices, it increases the body’s temperature slightly. The elevated temperature can disrupt your sleep.

A study was conducted at the Cleveland Clinic to test the theory of spicy foods and a poor night’s rest. They concluded that eating flaming hot dishes can cause bizarre dreams.

The body must work extra hard to digest these spicy foods, so it interferes with sleep. This is especially true if a person has heartburn that keeps them up.

If you’re going to eat things on the hot side, you must do it at least 2-3 hours before bed.

Understanding the Side Effects of Vivid Dreams

If you suffer from colorful dreams for several nights a week, it can cause all kinds of problems for you. The most common side effects of these dreams are:

•Daytime Sleepiness

•Suicidal Attempts or Thinking

•Resisting Sleep

•Mood Problems

When you don’t get the rest you need, then you cannot function properly. If insomnia is at the crux of your problem, then you need to find ways to combat this issue. A situation like narcolepsy is severe and requires medical intervention.

You can be quite troublesome to be around when you’re not getting enough sleep. Having problems with scary dreams that wake you up in a state of panic can affect your whole day and mood.

Final Thoughts on Getting Help for Your Vivid Dreams

It’s essential to pinpoint the cause of the dreams, especially if they are more like nightmares. You may be eating the wrong foods too close to bedtime, or you may have severe stress in your life that is causing significant issues.

Additionally, any substantial changes in your life, like death or divorce, can affect your rest.

The best way to combat the issues caused by stress is to use things like meditation, yoga, or counseling. Taking an herbal supplement like valerian root or melatonin to help you rest is advisable if you’re not getting at least 7-8 hours of sleep each night. You can quickly develop a sleep debt and have more significant issues than some wild dreams.

Try to avoid medications that induce sleep as they can often cause more harm than they do good. Many herbal things can induce sleep, which is perfectly safe. When you have issues with vivid dreams, you need to talk to someone professionally.

When they become more frequent and troubling, your therapist or mental health professional should be alerted to the issue. They can help you find a way to calm the occurrences and cope with them during this phase. Thankfully, these bright dreams won’t last forever, and soon things will be back to normal.

Chemical dryer sheets are as popular as laundry detergent when it comes to washing clothes. They work well – they soften your clothes and eliminate static electricity. However, have you ever stopped to think about what’s in dryer sheets? After all, whatever is in them is getting melted all over your clothes every time you use them.

Chemical dryer sheets are not as safe as you think they are. Most people have never considered the vagueness of these sheets. The truth is that they could be harmful to you as well as the environment. Here are five reasons you should toss them out (plus alternatives you can use instead).

5 Reasons to Toss Out Dryer Sheets

Do you use these products when you do your laundry chores? Here are several reasons why you should stop!

1. There is no government regulation of dryer sheets.

Agencies like the FDA or the USDA often regulate many products on the market to ensure their safety. However, dryer sheets aren’t regulated by any government agency in the United States. Manufacturers have total freedom to make their dryer sheets however they want to.

The reason for this is that dryer sheets aren’t meant for human consumption or for topical use (meaning on the skin). Since they’re technically meant for clothing, this means they don’t need to be regulated for human safety as far as the body is concerned.

This means that manufacturers can put anything in their dryer sheets that do not make them flammable. That’s a scary thought when there are so many dangerous substances on the market.

It would be nice to be able to trust the honor system. However, with the history of recalled products in this country, that doesn’t seem logical. Many manufacturers will use anything in their products that are cheap and helps them save money.

2. They contain unknown chemicals.

If you’ve ever taken the time to read the ingredients listed on a box of chemical dryer sheets? If you have, you probably found one of two things. Either the ingredients listed were some vague description that doesn’t really tell you what’s in them (like the synthetic fragrance or woven sheets) or the ingredients weren’t listed at all.

Since dryer sheets aren’t regulated, they aren’t required to list the ingredients that they use. However, a quick internet search can reveal the most common ingredients used in chemical dryer sheets. You may be shocked by what you find.

Believe it or not, the contents of the ingredients list are not the biggest problem. The problem with not listing ingredients is that some people may be allergic to them. How can they make the determination that a brand of dryer sheets is good for them if the ingredients aren’t listed on the box? They can’t.

3. They are harmful to the environment.

The benefits of recycling and biodegradable materials have been well established and taught. However, most chemical dryer sheets are not biodegradable. They are made of synthetic materials that will continue to pile up in landfills as more and more people use them.

There are a few biodegradable brands out there. However, they’re only slightly better than regular brands. They still don’t list their ingredients and they still aren’t regulated.

They can also still be bad for allergies. Synthetic fragrances are a big allergy trigger. They also emit volatile organic compounds that are harmful to people and the environment. Who knows what other triggers are in the sheets?

4. They can cause your dryer to malfunction.

These clothing softener products contain a meltable coating that gets all over your clothes as the dryer tumbles. The problem with this is that this coating also gets all over your dryer as well. It may take a while, but with every dryer sheet you use, you’re closer to making your dryer malfunction and even create a fire hazard.

For one, this coating will clog your lint trap. Even if you remove the lint after each dry, the coating is so thin that it will clog the fine mesh. You’ll need to perform extra cleaning, likely with a toothbrush or something similar, to ensure that the lint trap doesn’t clog.

There is a part inside your dryer called the electronic monitoring sensor. This part is what senses that your clothes are dry and turns your dryer off (if you have this feature). The coating from the dryer sheet can coat this sensor causing it to malfunction. This means your clothes could over-dry and your electric bill could increase for no reason.

5. There has been little research into the effects of the unknown chemicals.

Not only are these unregulated sheets made with unknown chemicals, but no one’s done much research into how these chemicals are affecting people or the environment. There aren’t any relevant clinical trials to review and there is no data to compare. The scientific community has just accepted dryer sheets as they are.

It could be because researching dryer sheets isn’t high on the list of research priorities. It’s true that there are plenty of other topics that need to be researched more – cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, GMO foods – but someone needs to shine a light on this unregulated industry. Dryer sheets could be doing serious harm and we wouldn’t know it until thousands or even millions have died.

There is a solution to this problem, but it involves you–the consumer. You could choose substitutes for dryer sheets. There are plenty of safe, natural substitutes that will give you the same or better results than those chemical-laced sheets. Keep reading to learn about some of them.

What You Can Use Instead

Here are several products to try instead of commercial products.

Wool Dryer Balls

Wool dryer balls are an excellent alternative. It’s an all-natural fabric (more about that below). They do everything that dryer sheets do, but they do it better. Plus, they’re long-lasting and inexpensive.

Wool dryer balls help your dryer dry your clothes up to 20% faster. Your energy costs will begin to decrease with the use of them. Unlike sheets, you’ll have to add several wool balls to the dryer, but you also get a lot more of them in the box.

Vinegar

Vinegar seems to always be a solution to everything. It just happens to be a great solution to finding a substitute for dryer sheets. White vinegar is best because it won’t leave any type of color stain on the clothes.

Vinegar will soften the fabric very well. You’ll also have the added benefit of it disinfecting your dryer. If you’re worried about your clothes having a vinegar smell after drying, you can tuck that worry away. Just air them out for a while and the vinegar scent will disappear.

Note: don’t go crazy with the white vinegar. A quarter of a cup will do the job. Simply soak a washcloth with it and toss it in with the rest of the laundry.

Baking Soda

Baking soda works like vinegar, but it’s better if you put it in the washing machine instead of the dryer. It has so many benefits for both your clothes and the washing machine. Not only will it soften your fabrics, but it will knock out odors, brighten colors, and clean the washing machine.

Note: if you decide to combine methods, do not combine vinegar and baking soda! You will have a volcanic-like eruption flowing out of your washing machine.

Aluminum Foil

Aluminum foil will get static electricity out of your clothes better than anything else you could use. It also helps to dry the clothes faster. Simple make some aluminum foil balls and toss them in with the laundry. Make sure you save them – they are reusable.

Natural Fabrics

You could cut out the need for dryer sheets, dryer balls, or dryer anything by wearing natural fabrics. These types of fabrics don’t collect static electricity, so you’ll have no need for a dryer aid. They’re also great for people who may have allergies since they don’t irritate the skin. Examples are cotton, bamboo, silk, and wool.

Reusable Dryer Sheets

While these are still dryer sheets, they are made from natural fabrics and contain no chemicals or synthetic fragrances. That means you these products aren’t harmful to the environment, they aren’t a fire hazard, and they’re safe for people with sensitive skin. Plus, you’ll cut back on waste since you won’t be constantly throwing them away. It’s a win-win situation.

Final Thoughts on Why You Should Throw Out Chemical Dryer Sheets

There are worse things in the world than chemical dryer sheets, but that still doesn’t mean you should keep buying them. Every little thing you can do to keep yourself and your family healthy, plus help the environment, is important. Getting rid of chemical dryer sheets is a simple way to do your part.

It’s easy to make the change because the alternatives that were presented are easy to implement. In fact, you probably have some of the supplies in your home already so what do you have to lose by giving them a try? You’ll likely be pleasantly surprised at the results of ditching those chemical-laced sheets.