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Easy methods to Clean Your Yoga Mat
- So, just how dirty is your yoga mat?
- One of the best strategy to clean and disinfect your yoga mat
- Can you place your yoga mat within the washer?
- Can using a yoga towel assist you to avoid cleansing your yoga mat?
- Carry on practicing!
There’s nothing worse than rolling out your yoga mat before you practice and noticing a layer of grime or catching a whiff of days-old sweat. Yet your biggest problem isn’t the cringe factor.
Consider that your yoga mat absorbs all of the sweat, oil, and dirt that it’s exposed to out of your feet and the ground. Meaning it could easily grow to be contaminated with bacteria, fungi, and other microbes, especially after a very hot, sweaty practice.
To forestall dirt and bacteria from lingering, it is advisable to not only take the time to wipe down your yoga mat but actually know easy methods to clean your yoga mat.
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Assorted bacteria which might be often found on unclean yoga mats. (Photo: Steve Gschmeissner | Science Photo Library | Getty)
How Dirty is Your Yoga Mat?
For an article by ABC-13 News, swabs of several personal and communal yoga mats were sent to Melanie Rech, laboratory director at EMSL Analytical, for examination. Shared mats from a yoga studio “got here back the cleanest with 3 million counts of normal environmental bacteria,” based on the article. This isn’t surprising since yoga studios are supposedly clean communal mats in between uses. (Whether or not they at all times do or not is a unique story.)
Nonetheless, the communal yoga mat from a gym tested positive for staph. The teacher’s yoga mat, which is wiped down every other week, harbored yeast, which is a fungus. And the yoga mat from a girl who admittedly “doesn’t clean her mat often” surprisingly tested “positive for 12 million counts of bacteria,” based on ABC-13 News, including “a coliform bacteria and fecal indicator.”
Dirt and bacteria could be transferred out of your mat to any a part of your body, including your face. (Photo: FreshSplash | Getty)
The fungi and bacteria commonly found on yoga mats could be accountable for various infections and inflictions, including athlete’s foot, plantar warts, staph infections, ringworm, and more. And we don’t must remind you of the proximity of your face to your mat in certain poses. So not cleansing your mat could be pretty gross.
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Cleansing solutions vary. What’s nonnegotiable are ingredients that effectively disinfect your yoga mat. (Photo: Polina Tankilevitch | Pexels)
Easy methods to Clean and Disinfect Your Yoga Mat
Craig Stiff, director of Hardgoods at Manduka, recommends “cleansing your mat after every practice or use.” And don’t forget to flip your mat over. “Each side of the mat ought to be cleaned, as microbes can migrate from the dirty side to the clean,” says Stiff, referring to how the side of the mat that touches the ground will rest against the realm where you recurrently place your feet, hands, chest, back, and face when it’s rolled.
A very important distinction, though, is whether or not you’re cleansing your yoga mat or disinfecting it. Based on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cleansing removes germs while disinfecting kills germs.
Even when you’re giving your mat a fast wipe down after class, you may not be doing enough to do away with germs. You almost certainly must also give it an occasional wash with a disinfectant to kill any microbes which have taken up residence.
Easy methods to Clean Your Yoga Mat After Each Class
You’ve likely seen and possibly even used the spray bottles found at every yoga studio with a line of individuals waiting to make use of them after class. But what exactly are in those bottles?
A standard organic cleansing solution is equal parts water and white vinegar with a splash of tea tree oil. White vinegar has antibacterial properties and tea tree oil is an antimicrobial. Together, they might help ensure dirt and most bacteria don’t linger in your mat, although they won’t kill a few of the harshest germs, including the type that causes methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).
It’s also possible to splurge on premade yoga mat cleansing sprays, but check the ingredients and research them fastidiously. A 2016 study questions the flexibility of essential oils alone to destroy pathogens.
Whatever solution you select, spritz it on either side of your yoga mat and use a towel to wipe it dry after each use. This could remove most pathogens in your mat’s surface, even though it may not kill them.
Easy methods to disinfect your mat
If you happen to can’t remember the last time you thoroughly scrubbed down your mat, it’s time to present it a correct disinfecting.
Hydrogen peroxide is a natural disinfectant for individuals who prefer organic ingredients. Dish washing or laundry soap can be useful for cleansing yoga mats attributable to their chemical formulas which might be designed for cleansing. The identical applies to any mat wipes which might be advertised as disinfectants. Dr. Philip Tierno, a Clinical Professor in N.Y.U Langone Health’s Department of Pathology, told the Recent York Times in an interview that “for a mat wipe to work, the liquid must have alcohol or quat-based disinfectants which might be commonly utilized in detergents.”
1. Use hydrogen peroxide or dishwashing or laundry soap mixed with water in a sprig bottle as your disinfecting solution. (Just remember to only use just a few drops of dish soap. Too much can leave a slippery film in your mat’s surface.)
2. Spritz your mat so your complete surface is roofed with the answer. Let it rest for 2 to a few minutes. (A tub or a backyard work well for this.)
3. Use a microfiber cloth, the soft side of a sponge, or an old cotton t-shirt to clean your yoga mat clean. (A microfiber cloth might be the best in your mat’s materials.) Don’t be too vigorous along with your scrubbing as you desire to keep the naturally sticky nature of your mat intact.
4. Rinse your mat with warm water and permit it to air dry.
The disinfectant method will not be only useful for heading off ailments like athlete’s foot, plantar warts, staph infections, and ringworm but common germ-induced skin conditions, including pimples.
Thoroughly disinfect your mat at the least once per thirty days. Although your mat’s odor is one indicator of when it needs a wash, if it starts to reek it has already absorbed sweat and dirt that exposes your body to microbes with its every use. Heather Lilleston, considered one of the founders of Yoga For Bad People, washes her mats more steadily when she’s attending hot yoga classes.
RELATED: How Often Should You Clean Your Yoga Mat?
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Easy methods to Wash Your Yoga Mat (Can You Use a Washing Machine?!)
Whether you should use a washer to disinfect your yoga mat is definitely a much debated topic. The reply relies on your mat. Lilleston tosses her mat into the washer with cold water on the fragile cycle together with environmentally friendly detergent when it’s in need of a deep-clean. She then hangs it out to dry. “I wouldn’t recommend putting the mat into the dryer,” says Lilleston.
Stiff, nevertheless, encourages hand washing yoga mats. “We don’t recommend washing your mat within the washer. Usually, this can damage each the mat and washer, leaving you with a really expensive bill to exchange each,” he says.
Unless your mat has clear instructions that say you possibly can put it in a washer, it’s safest to stick to hand washing.
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Proceed practicing with a straightforward mind—and a sprig bottle and towel close at hand. (Photo: FreshSplash | Getty)
Keep Practicing!
In case your yoga mat is dirty, which means it’s getting used, which is your complete point of owning it. Lilleston says the inevitable wear and tear endured by your mat, together with some dirt and sweat, ought to be seen as a badge of honor. But you continue to need to take care of a certain level of cleanliness—and never only for reasons of hygiene.
“The entire idea of the dirty hippie yogi ought to be thrown out the window,” she says. “An enormous a part of practice is cleanliness. You’re entering a sacred space whenever you practice, so the best way you retain that space has an effect on what you get out of your practice.”
Keep your practice space unencumbered by unwanted dirt and bacteria by wiping your mat after every use and giving it a deep clean at the least once per thirty days.
This text has been updated. Originally published December 13, 2019.
About Our Contributor
Kyle Houseworth is a former assistant editor at Yoga Journal.