The Role of Personal Hygiene in Preventing Bacterial Infections

Remember when your mom used to yell at you for not washing your hands before you eat? Or maybe not maintaining good hygiene? Well, she isn’t wrong. So, what is this key role of personal hygiene and how do you implement it?

The Key Role of Personal Hygiene

Your chance of contracting diseases and ailments often spread by viruses and bacteria is reduced by practicing good hygiene. Every time you cough, use the toilet, pet your pet, or touch a surface that is often touched by others, like a stair railing, your hands come into contact with germs. This bacteria can grow if you don’t frequently wash your hands and body, which raises your risk of infection and other health issues. By keeping yourself clean and washing your hands frequently, you may get rid of bacteria that cause sickness and reduce your chance of getting sick.

When wounds and skin irritation are present, maintaining good hygiene is essential to preventing infection. Poor hygiene can cause dirt and other germs to enter skin wounds and remain there, whereas proper hygiene can keep these bacteria at bay to avoid infection. Maintaining good hygiene helps you avoid infecting family, friends, and coworkers with bacteria and diseases.

Here are examples of conditions that you may develop if you have poor personal hygiene:

Covid-19
Gastroenteritis
Diarrhoea
Colds and flu
Scabies
Threadworms

Being around people who don’t practice excellent hygiene can make you feel uncomfortable because of things like body odor and poor breath, and it raises your chance of being sick and infected. Your social life and connections, especially professional ones, might suffer from poor hygiene. Many businesses encourage or demand that workers maintain proper hygiene, and they frequently prefer to recruit candidates who are tidy and who appear to have acceptable hygiene practices. Employers in the food and medical industries place a premium on good cleanliness because it can prevent contamination and the spread of illness. Children who maintain excellent hygiene will be less likely to experience bullying at school, since data points to poor cleanliness as one of the main causes of bullying. Parents who stress the value of excellent hygiene to their kids help them develop healthy habits early in life and shield them from bullies.

You may feel more confident and at ease, both physically and emotionally, by keeping yourself clean and well-groomed. Feeling filthy, greasy, and unclean not only compromises your physical health but may also lead to uncomfortable, agitated, and anxious feelings. Your mood, your interactions with others, and how you feel about yourself can all be affected by poor hygiene.

Maintaining good hygiene may increase your self-worth, confidence, and make you appear more appealing to others. Maintaining good hygiene may help you succeed at work, at the gym, and in other situations when you need to be at your best.

How Can You Implement It?

Try to take a daily shower or bathe. Wash thoroughly, paying special attention to the areas surrounding your genitalia and anus. Maintaining cleanliness will eliminate microorganisms that produce body odor and stop skin irritations. Use soap, shower gel, or a hypoallergenic body wash to wash yourself. More bacteria can be removed using soap, but you might need to wash delicate body regions in plain water or salt water first. Use a fresh, moist towel or sponge to clean yourself if there isn’t any or very little tap water available.

Wash your hands thoroughly for at least 20 seconds to prevent getting ill.

Your hands should be wet.
Use enough soap to completely coat your hands.
Rub your palms together.
Clean your hands’ backs and the spaces in between your fingers.
If one is available, use a scrubbing brush to clean filthy nails.
Rinse your hands well on both sides, ideally in a sink full of fresh water.
Using a fresh towel, dry your hands.
To turn off the faucet, use the towel.

Hand sanitizer is an additional option. Be careful to apply enough of the ointment to completely cover your hands. Make careful to rub your hands’ palms, backs, and between your fingers.

Washing your hands after using the restroom is especially crucial since feces, which you may come into touch with, contain billions of bacteria. Wash your hands as well:

Before and after contacting a sick person or cleaning up vomit or bodily fluids. Before and after blowing your nose. Before and after healing cuts or wounds. Before and after touching trash, unclean surfaces, or items. Before and after handling pets or farm animals.

The Medical Field and Personal Hygiene

Due to the physical contact that healthcare workers, patients, and family members have, microbes are easily transferred throughout the industry. The risk of cross-contamination and the spread of contagious illnesses is drastically decreased by practicing basic personal hygiene.

So the next time you get yelled for not washing your hands, do it.

Aamu Yalamanchili, Youth Medical Journal 2022