5 reasons why you should keep Your hands clean always

When I was little, My mom used to tell me stories of how she and her friends used to hide their fingers if they had so much as a chipped fingernail. Now, that didn't make sense to me. 'What is the issue with that?' I thought to myself. Years later, I discovered that a lot can be deciphered by looking at the hands alone.

By looking at the hands alone, One can know

1. The gender of the person, most times.


2. If the person is clean or untidy: This is judged mainly by dirt stuck in the fingernails and sometimes the creases of the palms and fingers.


3. The age of the person: An elderly person may have more lines (wrinkles) on the back of the hands and the skin on it may be dry.


4. The overall health of the person: This will be elaborated in another post. The fingernails (and the toenails) say a lot about a person's state of health. They can reflect a range of conditions, examples are anemia (low red blood cells and hemoglobin), chronic diseases like Tuberculosis, cancer, vitamin deficiencies, etc.

The above list describes the obvious signs. However, a lot of microbes live on the skin and everywhere in the body. Some are a natural flora (harmless unless in certain situations like low immunity) while some are quite harmful. The hands carry much more of these microscopic organisms than most parts of the body.

We use the hands for everything;

Simply put, they are almost always used as the first point of contact for self (touching the face, etc) and others. Some uses for hands include:

1. Bath and Loo.


2. Cooking.


3. Catering to children/elderly/immune compromised people.


4. For health care workers; to attend to patients and other co-workers.


5. Shaking hands with people.


6. Touching devices like phones, tablets, PCs, etc.

Reasons to keep the hands clean

1. By keeping them clean, others are protected from harm. The rationale here is, if everyone kept their hands clean, there will be a drastic reduction of transfer of infections due to contact. This will also reduce the burden of many infectious diseases. 


2. The fingernails and the hands have more germs than any part of the body.


3. Antibiotic resistance: Antibiotics are medicines that are used to treat bacterial infections.  Resistance means the bacteria no longer respond to treatment due to several reasons.  One of the causes of their resistance comes when these bacteria are able to live and multiply due to poor hygiene. There is a National Hands washing day organized by several organizations such as the WHO (World Health Organization).


4. Younger looking hands, soft and supple skin: It is no miracle that when the hands are constantly sanitized and kept moisturized, the outcome is a younger looking, supple skin. Carrying a hand sanitizer (in the case where there is no water and soap) and hand cream about is crucial in achieving this.

Thanks for reading Beautiful people.

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Yours in the flawless skin journey, Nafisah NK