Introduction: Cleanliness is a habit of keeping the body, personal belongings and surroundings clean and free from germs, impurities, and garbage. The earlier the habit of cleanliness is infested, the better it is. Cleanliness is good quality, as indicated by the aphorism: “Cleanliness is next to Godliness”, and maybe regarded as contributing to other ideals such as ‘health’ and ‘beauty’.
Everybody loves a clean environment but very few have the ability to maintain cleanliness. The ability to ensure cleanliness and perform cleanliness is tasking and requires a lot of work. Due to the importance of cleanliness, most people struggle to keep their environments clean at all times. It can be a habitual process as it requires to be done on a daily basis. Personal hygiene, for example, is an essential aspect of an individual’s life because it affects social relations, self-perception, and health in general. It is therefore important to practice cleanliness at all times.
Personal and Environmental Cleanliness: Personal Cleanliness refers to the habit of keeping our body and other belongings neat and clean. It relates to our day to day activities at home, in the workplace and in other places, where we visit. It includes habits like bathing, brushing teeth, washing hands, trimming nails, wearing tidy clothes, etc. These all are personal grooming habits related to personal cleanliness. It also depends on how we behave at our workplace and other places that we visit.
Environmental Cleanliness refers to the efforts we take to keep the environment clean. The environment we live in is no less important than our own bodies that we aspire to clean. Like we make efforts to keep our body clean we also must make an effort to keep the environment clean. Environment cleanliness arises from the habit of not littering the garbage and ensuring that less garbage is generated and is disposed of properly.
Impacts of Cleanliness on Our Lives: Cleanliness cuts across for all stages of life and it plays important roles in the activities of daily living. In education, cleanliness has been determined to have an impact on leaning. The mindset of students is influenced by the environment which influences the ability of students to learn. A dirty environment is not conducive for learning because it instills stressful motions and there is reduced ability of students to learn.
In the workplace, the same concept applies because productivity is influenced by the environment. A clean environment will enhance productivity because people will work with a positive mindset that is free of stress. Also, achievements will be more pronounced in a clean environment compared to a dirty environment. In health, cleanliness is important because hygienic practices contribute to good health of individuals. A dirty environment predisposes people to diseases, which affects their ability to perform activities and it results in less productivity.
Social relationships are built through interactions between people. Personal hygiene is an important aspect in creating social relations because it is hard to approach a dirty person as they will be having bad breath, bad body odor and the interaction will be limited due to discomfort.
Campaigns of Cleanliness: The first Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew started the campaign to keep the country clean almost 50 years ago. It made the place pleasant and added value to its economy. The sickness rate is low, life expectancy is more, tourism has flourished and all the citizens benefit from it.
Several cleanliness campaigns were arranged from time to time by government agencies, people and communities. People clean their offices, neighborhood and other public places, in groups, displaying a collective responsibility towards cleanliness.
Educational Institutions were an essential part of the campaigns. Students were taught about the health benefits of maintaining personal hygiene and cleanliness. Soaps were distributed to the students and proper water availability was ensured by the authorities.
Importance of Cleanliness: Cleanliness is the major step to healthy living. Cleanliness can prevent and cure people from communicable diseases. Effective cleaning can forbid viruses and other infectious diseases.
With the assistance of cleanliness, we can keep our mental as well as physical health clean, which will make us feel better. Cleanliness offers to ascend to a decent character by keeping the body, brain, and soul perfect and tranquil. Keeping up cleanliness is the basic piece of solid living since it is cleanliness just which enhances our identity by keeping clean remotely and inside.
Tips to Maintain Cleanliness: We can maintain cleanliness by adapting to simple methods in our everyday life. Some of the simple yet significant steps to maintain cleanliness are listed below:
Wash Hands Regularly – Washing our hands, properly with soap is a good habit as it prevents the spread of germs and also their accidental entry into our own body. Washing hands before eating is a must.
Bathe Everyday – This habit is related to maintaining high levels of personal hygiene. If you bathe daily your body will be free of germs and other impurities.
Brush Teeth – We must brush our teeth regularly, at least twice in a day, once after getting up in the morning and second, before going to bed. It is a personal habit of cleanliness which is essential for our own health.
Keep a Dustbin – Dustbins are used to dump any household waste so that it doesn’t get strewn here and there. The use of a dustbin makes a place look neat and tidy.
Dispose of the Garbage Properly – We must ensure that the garbage collected in our houses gets properly disposed of and doesn’t reach our streets, water bodies, and other areas.
Do not Litter – Avoiding littering is another essential aspect of cleanliness. A person could only be tagged as clean when he/she keeps the standards of personal cleanliness as also maintain environmental cleanliness.
Avoid Plastic Bags – Plastic Bags are a menace and the greatest threat to the environment. Our struggle for cleanliness will be incomplete as long as we keep on using plastic bags. Due to their lighter weight and non-biodegradable nature, plastic bags just linger for centuries in the environment and degrade its quality.
Many life-threatening diseases are caused due to the lack of cleanliness in and around our places, whether it be home, schools, etc. With proper cleaning and taking care of our environment, all these health issues can be destroyed for a happy living.
Conclusion: Cleanliness is a huge responsibility that requires commitment. The impacts of a clean environment on performance and achievements should be a motivating factor. If we love a clean place it should be our responsibility to make it clean. It is essential to be both, personally clean as well as responsible for the environment. Unless we take care of our personal hygiene as well as environmental health, we wouldn’t be clean in true sense.
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