You’ve always heard about the importance of washing your hands, first in the old school water and soap way, and then, more recently, washing your hands and also using hand sanitizers to keep them clean.
Some say it is important to wash your hands multiple times through the day.
Then again, there is another group that says it is good to let the friendly microbes enter your mouths, so that your immunity can build up and get stronger.
Who do you believe and who is right?
Do germs actually help to build up our immunity?
Each time you fall sick, your body’s immune system goes into overdrive to fight it off. Your immunity keeps this fighting mechanism as a memory, which helps it to grow stronger and makes you more immune to the particular virus or bacteria. This means that, next time if you are prone to suffer something like this, your immune system will get active and prevent the illness from happening. In case you do fall sick, the severity will be much less than earlier.
What happens when you are too clean?
When you wash your hands too many times a day, whether it is with water and soap or using a hand sanitizer, the chemicals present in the soap or sanitizer dry out your skin. This can happen even if you use only water to clean your hands multiple times a day.
(Image credits: media.npr)
Skin that is too dry tends to get rough, and with time may develop small cracks that are not always visible to the naked eye. This acts as an opening for germs to enter your body, and as a result, you are again prone to fall sick.
How many times should you wash your hands?
It is good to wash your hands before you sit down for a meal, or when you come home from the outdoors. Other than that, each time you use the washroom or visit a public toilet, whether at a restaurant, mall or any other place, wash your hands with water and soap.
