Fresh and clean – that’s how your bedroom must smell. If not, getting enough sleep will be difficult. A bedroom that smells musty, dusty, and stinky can adversely impact the quality of sleep you’ll get each night. Worse, these smells won’t even let you sleep.

To freshen up your bedroom and help you sleep better without having to use chemical-laden products, here are natural and inexpensive ways you can try:

Change your beddings.

Nothing’s more inviting than going home to a clean bed with freshly laundered beddings and sheets. To achieve that, make sure to change your pillows, beddings, and the like regularly. In doing so, add half a cup of baking soda to the rinse cycle to make them even fresher.

Once every few months, hang-dry comforters, pillows, and other linens outside under the sun to freshen them up naturally. Hanging your beddings under the sun won’t only make them whiter and fresher, but will also disinfect them. The sun’s UV works as a natural disinfectant.

Tackle musty drawers.

If you think you’ve already cleaned all corners and areas of your bedroom and yet there’s still a lingering unpleasant smell, the culprit may be inside your drawers. Infrequently used drawers tend to have a stale or musty smell over time. So, you better clean and vacuum them up.

Vacuum the carpet.

Clean up your entire bedroom to get rid of dust and dirt. But, in doing so, don’t forget about your rug or carpet. Rugs and carpets tend to accumulate bacteria, dust, mold, grime, and dirt from the bottom of your feet or shoes which over a long time can result in an unpleasant smell.

You can also coat your carpet with baking soda before vacuuming to deodorize and freshen it up better. To maintain the cleanliness of your carpet and your entire bedroom, remove your shoes before entering. Have separate bedroom slippers to keep dirt away from your bedroom.

Keep baking soda handy.

Baking soda is no doubt a multi-purpose household item with a lot of uses. It can be your next go-to item in keeping your bedroom clean and fresh all the time. You can use it to deodorize and freshen up your mattress, closets and drawers, carpets, and even your smelly shoes.

Make DIY fresheners.

There’s no need to spend a lot of money on commercial room fresheners and deodorizers that are packed with lung-irritating chemicals that can be harmful to our health. The good news is that you can make your own room fresheners using inexpensive and natural ingredients. Here are natural room freshener recipes you can make at home (just boil and simmer them):

• Sliced apple, cinnamon sticks, and whole cloves
• Sliced lemon and orange, dried bay leaves, cinnamon sticks, and whole cloves
• Sprigs of fresh lavender, cinnamon sticks, dried nutmeg, whole cloves, and cardamom
• Vanilla extract, lemon, and fresh sprigs of rosemary
• Fresh rose petals, eucalyptus oil, and dried chamomile

Declutter your room.

Give your bedroom a thorough clean. Get rid of all items you don’t plan on using anymore because they may become collectors of dust and contribute to the unpleasant smell in your bedroom over time. To get started with decluttering, you can follow Marie Kondo’s KonMari method.

Don’t bring food in bed.

If you bring food and drinks into your bedroom, with one wrong move, disasters like spills can ensue. More than that, bringing food into your bedroom won’t only attract bed bugs and other pests, doing so will also make your bedroom smell like your kitchen over time.

Never let the unpleasant smell in your bedroom get in the way of your good night’s sleep with these tips!