ACHIEVING EXCELLENCE THROUGH SIKHISM WAY OF LIFE
11. HYGIENE
This is the ELEVENTH Category.
Hygiene is a set of practices performed to preserve health. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), "Hygiene refers to conditions and practices that help to maintain health and prevent the spread of diseases." Personal hygiene refers to maintaining the body's cleanliness.
Hygiene activities can be grouped into the following: home and everyday hygiene, personal hygiene, medical hygiene, sleep hygiene, and food hygiene. Home and every day hygiene includes hand washing, respiratory hygiene, food hygiene at home, hygiene in the kitchen, hygiene in the bathroom, laundry hygiene, and medical hygiene at home.
While often equated with cleanliness in common usage, hygiene is a term encompassing the personal practices and environmental conditions that maintain health and prevent disease.
Hygiene is a practice related to lifestyle, cleanliness, health, and medicine. In medicine and everyday life, hygiene practices are preventive measures that reduce the incidence and spread of germs leading to disease. Hygiene practices vary from one culture to another.
The terms cleanliness and hygiene are often used interchangeably, which can cause confusion. In general, hygiene refers to practices that prevent spread of disease-causing organisms. Cleaning processes (e.g., handwashing) remove infectious microbes as well as dirt and soil, and are thus often the means to achieve hygiene.
Other uses of the term are as follows: body hygiene, personal hygiene, sleep hygiene, mental hygiene, dental hygiene, and occupational hygiene, used in connection with public health.
Personal hygiene involves those practices performed by a person to care for their bodily health and well-being through cleanliness. Motivations for personal hygiene practice include reduction of personal illness, healing from illness, optimal health and sense of wellbeing, social acceptance, and prevention of spread of illness to others. What is considered proper personal hygiene can be culture-specific and may change over time.
Practices that are generally considered proper hygiene include showering or bathing regularly, washing hands regularly and especially before handling food, face washing, washing scalp hair, keeping hair short or removing hair, wearing clean clothing, brushing teeth, and trimming fingernails and toenails. Some practices are sex-specific, such as by a woman during menstruation.
People tend to develop a routine for attending to their personal hygiene needs. Other personal hygienic practices include covering one's mouth when coughing, disposal of soiled tissues appropriately, making sure toilets are clean, and making sure food handling areas are clean, besides other practices. Some cultures do not kiss or shake hands in order to reduce transmission of bacteria by contact.
Personal grooming extends personal hygiene as it pertains to the maintenance of a good personal and public appearance, which need not necessarily be hygienic. It may involve, for example, using deodorants or perfume, shaving, or combing.
