WriteInFull! | Stay Healthy: The Importance of Good personal Hygiene! | by janeo42

Source

This post is an entry for the WriteInFull contest.

---

Introduction

Personal hygiene is something that should be talked about more often. It helps to prevent your body from getting infected with various infectious diseases including Covid-19.

And just as it helps to protect your body from diseases, it also prevents you from spreading diseases to others. As you can see it is a win-win situation for anyone who takes their hygiene personal.

I shall go on to talk about what personal hygiene is and it's importance. I hope you learn a thing or two from it.

---

What is Personal Hygiene?

Personal hygiene is simply the things you do to take care of your body. It involves the necessary things to keep the external parts of your body clean and in a healthy state.

Doing these things will help to reduce or prevent illnesses that can arise due to germs arising within you or by contacting diseases that are transmitted and infectious from others around you.

Some of the things includes:

• having to clean your body every day.

• having to wash your hands with soap after making use of the toilet.

• trying to brush your teeth more than once a day (at least twice).

• making sure you cover your mouth and nose with a tissue or piece of cloth anytime your are coughing or sneezing.

• having to wash your hands immediately after you handle a pets and other animals.

Keeping a good personal hygiene can increase your self-esteem and give you the confidence in your body. It also helps you to build and keep good relationships as others would be attracted to you based on how they perceive you.

Those with a poor personal hygiene creates an avenue that allows germs to grow which makes them vulnerable to diseases and infections which can lead to illnesses.

On a personal level, people will dissociate with you and start avoiding you. This will make you lose self-esteem and confidence in yourself. It will also make you become lonely and can result in living in isolation.

---

Ways of personal hygiene

There are so many ways at which you can develop a good personal hygiene.

The following list below is something you should be aware of if you are looking to build a personal hygiene routine.

Washing your Body

Source

Everyday when you sleep and wake up, so many unseen processes have taken place on your body without you ever knowing.

Also, when you step out of the house, you go through different phases that can affect you body negatively. You sweat in the process. If you don't take care of it, it can can lead to body odour as bacteria can form and then mix with the sweat if done continuously.

Always have a bathe in the morning when you just wake up from sleep and in the evening when you just get back home.

Try to wash yourself well, focus on your armpits and around your genitals and anus. When washing yourself use a soap, shower gel, or a body wash that is hypoallergenic.

Using soap helps to remove germs and add a bit of fragrance to your body, this help to prevent germs from you body and body odor. However, you can wash your genetials with plain water or salt water (this is true for women).

Fighting against Bad Breath

Having a good breath is something that you have to keep in mind if you want to have the best personal hygiene practices.

You need to protect your mouth from developing bad odor which leads to bad breath.
This happens when you have a bad oral hygiene.

To prevent bad breath you need to brush your mouth every morning when you wake and late at night before sleeping. This makes it twice a day.

In between you can also floss your teeth, especially when you have eaten something and it stuck to your teeth. You can also decide to have occasional check up with your dentist to check the state of your mouth in general.

Having your Genitals Washed

This usually happens when you are bathing. It is good practice to wash your genetials when bathing.

For men, this can be achieved by washing their pubic area with soap and water. For men that are uncircumcised, they can gently pull back the foreskin of their penis and wash underneath it with water or soap.

Wherea women have to gently wash the delicate skin around the vulva with either salt water or plain water. It best to avoid the use of perfumed soap and bath products because it can bring irritation to the sensitive skin of the vulva. Also don't douche, as it can affect the healthy bacteria in the vagina negatively.

Frequently Washing your Hands

Washing your hand is one of the surest ways to keep a goid personal hygiene and stop the spread of disease.

You hand is the part of your body that is used to perform different activities. You use it to cover your mouth when yawning, to shake others, to clean your body when bathing, etc. Therefore, it is the part of your body that is exposed the most and can get infected easily.

It is adviceable to wash your hands very often during the day and especially after tasks like cleaning you bum after using the restroom, taking out the garbage, blowing your nose, and having to contact someone who may be sick.

Fighting against Body Odor

Source

You can generally prevent body odor by having regular bath, twice daily.

But you can improve the odour that come from your body by applying deodorant to your armpits after bathing.

Also try to wear clean cloths. When you have worn a cloth, try to wash them with detergent then rinse and dry them immediately under hot sun. The thing is dirty clothes usually grow bacteria on them.

Wearing them can lead to body odor and even end up in a skin infection.

Getting Adequate Sleep

As humans we need to protect our bodies by giving it adequate rest. It is essential to get enough sleep as it affects the your overall wellbeing.

It is recommended that as an adult you should get up to seven to nine hours of sleep every night.

---

Importance of personal hygiene

When you wash your body you tend to remove dead skin cells and dirt from it. It prevent skin irritations, and helps to remove the bacteria that cause body odor.

Washing your hair which is also part of your body removes the oils present and keeps a person looking dry, fresh, and clean.

This act as a preventative measure to reduce the risk and spread of disease

Having a good personal dental hygiene can help prevent issues relating to the mouth such as gum disease and cavities. It also prevents bad breath and any chance of developing tooth decay in the future.

By using deodorants and perfume, it helps to block the smell that can come from your body and be noticeable if you dodn't make use of deodorant.

Finally, it's best you have adequate sleep every night. It make you feel refreshed and ready to take on the tasks for the next day. It also keeps you healthy and strong.

---

Conclusion

It is very necessary that you keep a good personal hygiene.

This is because it has a positive effect on your everyday live. It affects your social life with respect to how you interact with other people. It also has an impact on your physical and mental health.

It involves the simple act of taking care of your body and the things that are in contact with it, so as to make your body clean and healthy.

And for you to achieve a good hygiene, you need to develop a good personal hygiene routine and then maintain it.