Maintaining good hygiene is essential for a healthy life. Good hygiene protects you from infectious diseases spread by bacteria and viruses. CDC clearly stated that many diseases and conditions can be controlled or prevented if appropriate hygiene is practiced by regular washing of the body parts and hair with soap and water.
Maintaining good hygiene is holistic. It entails oral hygiene (regular brushing and flossing of the mouth), environmental hygiene (keeping your home and surrounding clean and insect-free), and hair and body hygiene. It is no doubt that maintaining good hygiene is important for humans.
However, for many people, it can be a challenging task to maintain a consistent hygiene routine. Busy work schedules, lack of motivation, and other factors are why some individuals struggle to maintain good hygiene.
Nonetheless, it’s essential to motivate yourself to prioritize personal hygiene as it plays a significant role in promoting overall health and wellbeing.
Hence, this blog post will help you learn how to motivate yourself to have a good hygiene.
How To Motivate Yourself To Have A Good Hygiene
If you want to maintain good hygiene but struggle to stick to the routines, below are ways to motivate yourself to have good hygiene.
1. Start by setting goals
If you are a goal-getter, then setting a goal is one of the ways to motivate yourself to have good hygiene.
For instance, you might be a public speaker and set a goal to achieve optimum oral health to aid your communication and confidence. If your job involves dealing with people, you can set a goal to always smell nice and appear clean. The list can go on and on.
Break your goal into daily tasks, such as brushing and showing every morning and night, washing your hair once or twice a week, and keeping clean nails and clean underwear.
Not only does good hygiene keep your body healthy, but it also lowers the risk of contracting or developing certain diseases and infections.
2. Visualize the benefits
The next step towards motivating yourself to have a good hygiene is visualize the benefits.
This is powerful motivator for maintaining good habits because by imagining the positive outcomes that come from good hygiene practices, such as better health, improved appearance, and increased self-confidence, you can create a mental image of the future you want to achieve.
This mental image can help motivate you to take action to achieve your goals, including maintaining good hygiene practices regularly.
Visualizing the benefits can also help you stay focused on your long-term goals, even when faced with short-term obstacles or challenges.
3. Establish a routine
Establishing a routine is an effective way to motivate yourself to maintain good hygiene habits. When you make hygiene habits a part of your daily routine, it becomes easier to remember to do them consistently.
One way is to create a routine of brushing your teeth twice a day after breakfast and before bed. Similarly, you could establish a routine of washing your hands every time you come home, before you eat, and after using the restroom.
Creating a routine also helps to build discipline and consistency. By following a routine consistently, you will be able to develop a habit that feels automatic and natural.
4. Educate yourself on good hygiene practices
Understanding the benefits of good hygiene and the consequences of poor hygiene can be a powerful motivator for maintaining good habits.
Good hygiene practices can help prevent the spread of disease, reduce the risk of infection, and improve overall health and well-being.
On the other hand, poor hygiene habits can lead to a range of health problems, including infections, skin irritations, bad breath, and body odor.
When you educate yourself about the importance of good hygiene, you can gain a better understanding of how these habits impact your health and quality of life. This can help you stay motivated to maintain good hygiene practices.
5. Make it enjoyable
Many people struggle to maintain good hygiene habits because they view them as a chore or a task they have to complete. However, by finding ways to make hygiene activities enjoyable, you can turn them into a pleasurable experience.
This can help motivate you to maintain good hygiene practices regularly.
One way you can make showering more enjoyable is by listening to your favorite music or podcasts or using scented soap that smells good.
You can also make brushing your teeth more enjoyable by using a flavored toothpaste or by brushing your teeth while doing something you enjoy, such as watching TV or listening to a podcast.
If you can find ways to make hygiene activities enjoyable, you can turn them into positive experiences that you look forward to, rather than tasks that you dread.
6. Give yourself a reward
Another way to motivate yourself to have good hygiene is to reward yourself for having good hygiene or consistently sticking to your hygiene routine.
Think of what you like, and reward yourself with it. It can be buying your favorite sports shoes for your early morning jogging routine or sitting out at a favorite restaurant.
Rewarding yourself helps to keep you consistently on your routine because you are eager to achieve another milestone to get something nice for yourself. Additionally, you can keep a journal to evaluate your progress.
7. Utilize scare tactics
If you are the type of person that gets motivated to do something to avoid a bad situation, then this is an effective motivational tip you can use to have good hygiene.
All you have to do here to go online and research about dangers of bad hygiene, or consult a doctor and make your enquires.
For example, bad oral hygiene can result in tooth loss, bad breath, gum infection, and diseases. Bad body and hair hygiene can result in body odor, body lice, hair lice, athlete’s foot, pinworms, and so on.
8. Get an accountability partner
If you have trouble being self-motivated, find an accountability partner. It can be a friend, a family member, or a close neighbor.
You can make it a competition between both of you, where you keep track of the days you follow your routine to reward the winner. It can be a solo competition, where the accountability partner values you and help to ensure you are always on track.
Conclusion
You can’t have a healthy life without maintaining good hygiene. If you are having issues keeping good hygiene, try out any of the ways to motivate yourself to have a good hygiene stated above and watch your progress. Remember that health is wealth and poor hygiene inevitably results in poor health.
