Personal hygiene

Your parents may have asked you to take bath everyday, wash your hands before eating,wash your hands and feet as soon as you come from school or play. They also probably have asked you to keep your study table clean and always wear clothes. Why do they say all this? They know that keeping yourself clean helps you to be healthy and free from diseases.

Personal hygiene is developing good habits and healthy practice to remain healthy and free from diseases. Now, you know what hygiene is and how you can maintain hygienic condition. First of all, you have to take care of your own cleanliness.

Your hair: clean and combed hair makes you feel and look good. Regular washing and combing help you to remove dust particles that settle in the hair. They also prevent growth of lice, which can cause irritation. Lice can spread from one person to another very easily. Dandruff can be prevented by regular washing of hair with shampoo and clean water.

Your skin: your entire body is covered with skin. Skin helps you feel heat, cold, pain, touch etc. skin prevents harmful organisms from entering the body. It also helps to throw out unwanted materials like Sweat from the body. Regular bathing is the best way to keep your skin clean.

Your nails: nails are dead cells, which are hardened. You have to keep them clean to prevent harmful

Organism from entering into the body. It is very necessary to make our nails short. Otherwise, dirt will settle in the nails and help germs to grow and enter your body.

Your teeth: teeth are the grinders of our food. Without teeth, we cannot eat solid food. Teeth also give nice shape to your face.

If teeth are not regularly brushed, some food particles get deposited on your teeth. It is called plaque.

Plaque is the substance that forms on the teeth, where bacteria can grow. These bacteria can slowly damage your teeth. You can prevent this by brushing the teeth regularly and keeping your mouth clean.

Your eyes: you know that eyes are the most important organs of your body. The whole world will be dark in the absence of eyes. So, it is very important to keep your eyes healthy and strong. For this, you must wash your eyes with cold water at least twice a day.

Your ears: these are very important organs, without which the whole world will be silent. You will not be able to listen to your music, your lessons in the class and so on. So, you must take good care of them. Never use pins, matchsticks, etc. to remove wax from your ears. They can harm your eardrums.

If you feel any pain or notice any watery discharge from your ears, you should tell your parents immediately about it.

Your nose: the nose is an organ, with which we smell and breathe. You should keep it clean by washing it with clean water.

Around the age of 11-12 years, girls start having a menstrual cycle due to the ripening of ova in their ovaries. Every month, for 4-6 days, they have blood coming out from the vaginal canal. In most Nepalese cultures, people observe the isolation period during these days but the most important aspect for girls during this time is to maintain personal hygiene (cleanliness of private parts ) since they have a discharge of blood for few days. Girls should clean their private parts several times a day and use clean and soft cotton cloths or a sanitary pad to prevent staining their dresses. Girls at this stage can suffer from anemia due to excess blood loss. Therefore, they should take a balanced diet with lots of green, leafy vegetables and fruits or meat if they are non- vegetarians.