Do you know which are the effects of poor personal hygiene in your life?
Are you aware of the consequences that skipping on hands washing, teeth brushing, showering, etc, may have on your health and well-being?
Looking for answers to these questions might help you to prevent many of the negative hygiene effects on your career, in your relationships or in social life.
Find below examples of how poor personal hygiene affects your health and how it affects your well-being.
What is poor personal hygiene?
To define bad personal hygiene, I’d say that it is a sign of neglecting your body’s cleanliness and health needs. As a result, the body starts looking unhealthy and unattractive.
The most important side effect of poor hygiene is its negative effect on the body’s health and that negatively affects your overall well-being.
Examples of poor personal hygiene effects on health
1. Body odor
Most of us are familiar with the effects of unpleasant body odor on our health. Besides embarrassing the people around you, it may develop allergies and unsupportable itching, making your life a nightmare.
Examples of behaviors that may cause body the release of an unpleasant body odor:
- Infrequent showering.
- Not replacing your smelly socks.
- Not airing shoes.
- Not washing your feet.
- Wearing smelly, stained or dirty clothes daily.
- Not changing your underwear regularly.
2. Bad breath and other mouth diseases
Bad breath is another poor personal hygiene issue that hurts your mouth's health.
As a result, inside your mouth may develop teeth decay, dental carries, bleeding gums, and bad breath.
Examples of behaviors that lead to oral hygiene diseases are:
- Not brushing your teeth regularly.
- Not flossing.
- Not cleaning your tongue.
- Drinking acidic drinks too often.
- Heavy smoking.
3. Influenza
Not knowing how to prevent the contamination with a virus or how to prevent the spreading of own microorganisms to others, also speaks about poor personal hygiene.
Examples of practices which promotes unhealthy bacteria and virus spreading:
- Not wearing a face mask when not feeling well.
- Not covering your mouth with a cloth or elbow when sneezing or coughing.
- Not avoiding social gatherings.
- Not washing your hands often.
4. Body lice
Body lice are small insects that thrive and produce eggs in clothing and bedding. These insects feed themselves with the residues they find on the skin.
Their favorite parts of the body to thrive and develop are the armpit and the groin, as these areas of the body have high humidity.
Behaviors that may lead to body lice development:
- Not showering regularly.
- Not changing the bedding at least once a week.
- Not washing your clothes.
- Wearing dirty and smelly clothes.
5. Herpes
Herpes is a form of fungi that most often appears on mouth lips.
Examples of behaviors which may lead to getting a herpes infection.
- Drinking from the same cup used by someone with herpes that used it before.
- Using forks, knives or tablespoons after they've been used by someone with herpes.
The disadvantages of poor personal hygiene on well-being
1. It affects your social life
Poor personal hygiene leaves visible signs of poor health on a person’s body.
These signs on your body make others perceive you as a source that spreads infections and diseases. For example, sneezing and coughing without covering the mouth or releasing unpleasant body odors makes a lot of people try to avoid such unhygienic behavior.
If you expect that people will tell you that it's time to take a shower, they won't. Once they'll notice someone's disturbing behavior, they'll politely leave his company without explaining why.
That makes sense.
It's their job to control their body odors. That's why it’s called “personal hygiene".
2. It hurts your personal presentation
Personal presentation is the skill of communicating about yourself through your physical appearance.
Ask yourself what message do you think your physical presentation communicates when you lack personal hygiene?
For example.
Let's say that you work as a customer relations representative and your job is to meet clients face to face daily.
How satisfied customers would be after working with you and smelling a disturbing body odor?
Your customers would be more willing to work with you if you’d have a professional look and meet them with a friendly smile.
3. It hurts your career
Poor personal hygiene has negative effects on your career as well.
One of these disadvantages is that people with poor hygiene have a hard time being promoted at work or earning a higher salary.
A study shows that 23% of employers are less likely to promote an employee with poor personal hygiene or physical appearance.
This study conveys the fact that poor personal hygiene may be one of the major reasons why an employee doesn't get promoted.
The employer thinks that:
- Jokes about your bad hygiene will spread throughout the office damaging your reputation in the eyes of your coworkers.
- Your inappropriate personal presentation in the workplace affects your self-esteem and confidence.
- an employer who cares about his team's health and safety will pass on an employee who is potentially infected with other members of the team.
4. It hurts your romantic relationships
Poor personal hygiene lowers your chances to find that one person with whom you'd share mutually satisfying moments.
By having bad breath or unpleasant body odor, you make it difficult for anyone to like you. Your hygiene issues may turn your partner off hurting the relationship in the long run.
Even if someone likes you, be aware that it's uncomfortable to stay around a smelly person or an unhygienic person.
Conclusion
The consequences of poor personal hygiene may be infinite depending on the circumstances you are in now.
One thing to remember is that the prevention of these bad hygiene effects is also an important part of personal hygiene.
So, if you want to have good personal hygiene try to prevent the negative consequences that poor hygiene has on your health and well-being.
