The Simple Act of Hand washing.
Imagine, if we didn’t have access to water and soap, all the infections and diseases people will come down with. Hand washing is very important practice, to prevent one from coming down with infections, and also one of the simplest underrated ways of preventing diseases and infections. Handwashing is usually well observed for children, because their immunity is not that fully developed so they tend to get infected easily,
but as we grow older we get our immunities, forget to continue this simple act, because we don’t easily develop infections as we did as children.
Hand washing as the name implies is the act of using soap and water to wash your hands. In the absence of soap you can use alcohol rub, but this doesn’t work in the presence of visibly soiled hands.
How to Wash Your Hands
You might think this is actually something everyone should know, but there is an actual way to wash your hands, you might just start doing it right after you read it. The CDC(2016) recommends washing your hands in five simple steps :
Wet your hands with clean, running water (warm or cold), turn off the tap, and apply soap. Simple toilet soap is sufficient you don’t need anything fancy but liquid soap is best recommended as the germs cannot get into liquid soap but bar soap is still very much good.
Lather your hands by rubbing them together with the soap. Be sure to lather the backs of your hands, between your fingers, and under your nails.
Scrub your hands for at least 20 seconds.
Rinse your hands well under clean, running water.
Dry your hands using a clean towel or air dry them.
When to wash your hands
- Before and after caring for someone who is sick.
- Before and after treating a cut or wound.
- After using the toilet.
- After changing diapers or cleaning up a Before, during, and after preparing food.
- Before eating food.
- A child who has used the toilet.
- After blowing your nose, coughing, or sneezing.
- After touching an animal, animal feed, or animal waste.
- After handling pet food or pet treats.
- After touching garbage.
Handwashing and Sexual Health
Hand washing matters in every aspect of our lives including our sexual health, it is important to be clean due to the bacterias that are present and lurking around every corner. Hand washing should be done before eating, before and after using the toilet, after touching anything that you know is dirty or harbors a lot of germs, before and after you touch anyone’s genitals, mouth, and nose. If you know how important it is to wash your hands before eating and after using the toilet it is important to know that you need to wash your hands before going into anyone ’s orifices or slinging the jelly(the term for masturbation gotten from Whores of Yore) below the belt.
Washing your hands before and after any sexual activity is practicing safer sex as you are reducing the spread of germs between you and your partner. If you or your partner engage in using your fingers in any of the orifices, either anal or vaginal, and it is going to another place it is quite beneficial to wash your hands in between.
References
Centre For Disease Control (2016). Hand washing: clean hands save lives. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/handwashing/when-how-handwashing.html