Hygiene refers to the routine practices conducive to maintaining health and preventing disease, especially through cleanliness. This Innate Essential is a subcategory of physical well-being.
Even though hygiene is primarily thought of as a physical cleansing and maintenance of one’s self. It could also easily be metaphorically transformed into any of the 3 categories of health. Physical, Chemical, and Emotional.
As I briefly described to you in, 9 Hygiene Standards for the Millennial, there are general standards of living to physically maintain in order to prevent disease and maintain your health. But this goes deeper than just the physical self. Let’s explore hygiene based on these 3 categories of well-being.
Emotional Hygiene
Your hygiene and your appearance overall give off an impression to others. These can often be extrinsic cues of intrinsic feelings. The way you take care of yourself is a reflection of how you feel about yourself.
Now, this analogy isn’t perfect but it is generally a good start. We have all been deceived by theatrical masks that one puts on to hide their true feelings. Robin Williams’s tragic story comes to mind.
We should also consider, as I tried to in the last post on Hygiene, that we are all raised in different cultures with different standards of care. This can apply again in all three categories of Well-Being.
Physically when wounded we cater to the injury quickly to rehabilitate or protect the area so it can heal and become stronger. When it is your child, you nurture their injury and comfort them through their insult.
Strangely, this is the opposite reaction when it comes to an emotional injury. We are often told to get over it or that it’s all in our head. That is to put it lightly. Most of us have an inner voice that is a sadist ready to pounce on our insecurities and shortcomings at the slightest of flaws.
Instead, we should really incorporate a standard of positive emotional hygiene. A practice of being mindful of our emotional and mental health as we incur damages on a daily basis. In my opinion, we should start with our self-talk first.
My inner voice is a mix of two people. It is more often than not depicted as my older brother James, telling me to “get the F up and get ready to fight.” As harsh as it sounds, it is that inner voice that makes me stand tall and step back up to the plate after falling short. “To stop being a pussy.”
The other voice is more comforting, more caring. Seemingly more logical and calm. “Life is hard. You are doing all that you can. Keep up the good work and don’t stop.”
I feel lucky that the worst of my self-talk is aggressive but motivational nonetheless. I have known many that have an inner voice of defeat and shame. As if their plight is any harder than anyone else’s. Maybe it is, but not always due to Reality, but moreover their perception of reality.
Emotionally we need to incorporate hygienic checkpoints. This can be routinely scheduled in many ways. Here are a few checkpoints to incorporate.
Start with Affirmations
Affirmations are daily reminders of the truth we want to live.
Affirmations are The Secret to changing behaviors. Affirmations are the counter to all the negative self-talk that happens somewhat naturally. They are the positive self-talk reminding us of all things we are and could be in the future.
How many of us have affirmations like the one I described to you in the first blog post on hygiene? Daily reminders of how you look, feel or smell? Daily reminders of your success, your strengths, your drive, and your motivation.
These are the easiest checkpoints to incorporate. Find a time, as I do in the bathroom every morning or like Hal Elrod does in the Miracle Morning or even just before bed after you pray for all the things you are grateful for. Affirmations can be done easily with routine or when needed for a quick boost to your self-esteem.
If you’d like examples of daily affirmations check out some of the apps with easy reminders like this one. Make this checkpoint part of your daily routines like brushing your teeth. Routines Build Dreams
Stop with the Negative Self-Talk
So you probably can’t stop it, but you can flip the negative self-talk when it arises. This is easier said than done but still possible. When you hear the negative self-talk starting, have a plan in place to counter it. It has been said that a simple 15-second distraction can keep you from ruminating over the past, present, or future. Do this when your mind turns negative towards one of those.
Instead, change your patterns by changing your self-talk. I find it helpful when I’m ruminating to come back to my To-Do list and see where I’m at for my day to day. Staying productive helps to negate the building of negative self-talk. If it’s really hard to get away from the self-talk, consider pulling up some of those affirmations we talked about before.
Add Therapy to your Hygiene Routine
Make a plan to visit a psychologist. A psychologist is an incredibly important piece of the emotional hygiene routine. In my opinion, they should be used regularly, not just for problems, but for well-being.
I feel a great psychologist is one in which he will help you create amazing tools and techniques for coping with life and as a bonus someone to listen without judgment or bias. Yes, currently finding this psychologist in your area is like finding a unicorn, but they do exist. You just have to know what to look for.
I am a personal fan, as many of you know, of Jordan Peterson’s style of psychology. It isn’t just psychobabble and childhood traumas. It’s real-life advice. It’s my aggressive voice telling me that “life is hard, pick up your cross and bear it. That’s what you’d do if you had a set.”
I’d also like to highlight that your emotional cues and self-talk don’t need to be aggressive or toxic. They should ideally be as empathetic as you would be to your child after crashing their bike and are physically hurt. Care for yourself emotionally as you would/should care for those that you love.
Emotional hygiene is important. That is to say that tending to your emotional needs should be a priority. I’m not a fan at all of covering up your feelings for long periods of time. Ideally, you shouldn’t have to cover them up at all.
Our feelings are cues to us that something is amiss. Like hunger pains are cues for the necessity of survival so are grief, sadness, loneliness, and fear. They are emotional cues that something is amiss. You shouldn’t ignore your emotional hygiene as the problems will only grow bigger if ignored.
IGNORING THE SIGNS IS A GOOD WAY TO END UP AT THE WRONG DESTINATION
Chemical Hygiene
The balance of chemical hygiene can be easily resolved with the 4 Innate Essentials I have listed in the Chemical Well-Being category.
Drink Water
Yes almost exclusively. Ideally, it would be the only fluid to touch our lips. This is the way our Paleolithic ancestors would’ve had it. Although if they could, I’m sure they would’ve enjoyed a Mai Tai or a frozen frappuccino. Water is the #1 Essential for a reason.
Eat Real Food
There is nothing to maintain or clean when your body is fueled with God-given earthly nutrients. These nourish our bodies and mind. Processed, chemical, plastic crap begs for a regular detox program. Yes, I do use a good detox on occasion as I am far from perfect. Eat Real Food
Stress Hormones
As I relate in Offense is the Best Defense, stress is a normal part of life. There are different types of stress and each is perceived by the body very differently. Stress from an active Offense standpoint means you are voluntarily taking on stress so that you can grow in the future. It is sacrificial. Defense on the other hand is toxic especially when chronic. The chemical composition of chronic fear and failure is deadly.
Detoxification
The body’s natural defense system against the chemical shit storm that you unload on it regularly. Treating your body like a Saturday night house party calls for a major overhaul. Luckily you have multiple systems in your body ready and willing to eliminate dead tissue, harsh chemicals, and any other non-essential chemical that hangs around after dark.
Yes, I regularly perform detoxifications. No, I don’t look at it as the right thing to do. Ideally, we would all live to these high standards set forth by the Chemical well-being essentials but the truth is, none of us are perfect. So, when you fowl up, first try to get back on the wagon and second clean out as much crap as you can.
One chemical hygiene technique that I have become a proponent of is fasting. I write about it in 5 Alternative Ways that Asceticism can Improve Your Health. There is intermittent fasting, multi-day fasting, and professionally guided medical fasting. I do both intermittent and multi-day fasting. These have been shown to help us as we age and accumulate all kinds of inorganic compounds in our bodies.
I would promote, even with a fairly healthy diet and chemical intake, the use of fasting from all sorts of things. Food, technology, society being some of the first things that come to mind. Chemical hygiene’s focus should be daily putting in the cleanest of fuels and removal of the dirtiest of crap.
Physical Hygiene
Physical hygiene is the main topic in the original blog post about how to take care of yourself hygienically. In the original blog post on hygiene, I go over some of the grooming techniques that are imperative to your physical body.
Included in these culturally western practices are things like cleaning of hair, skin, teeth, and clothes as well as maintenance of hair, teeth, nails, and body odor.
Physically your hygiene is a reflection of how you perceive yourself and how you want others to perceive you.
Going a step further, you can maintain your physical form and function through routine hygiene practices. These are practices that I talk about here in different capacities and will link to other articles on the topics.
Form
Maintaining structural integrity is a top priority for physical hygiene and prevention. Our musculoskeletal system is the house in which we live and in which all 12 of our bodily systems reside.
Musculoskeletal
Posture needs to be maintained and/or corrected for the proper functioning of the musculoskeletal system. On top of that, all other systems of the body also depend on the maintenance of your structure.
Proper form is needed for proper movement to maintain integrity and flexibility of your ligaments, tendons, discs, bones, and joint spaces in between.
Respiratory
Good posture also dictates if your lungs can function at full capacity. Full inspiration and expiration require a structure engineered to allow for full movement.
Cardiovascular
The cardiovascular system’s function can also be hindered by poor posture. The arterial system will become blocked or reduced by the structure as well as time.
Nervous System
Most importantly your nervous system will be altered when improper form persists. The one system that runs all other systems can be dampened leading to the pathophysiology of every other system.
All of these and more have the same thing in common. If the form is abnormal, the function will be abnormal as well. This is why posture is my first Physical Innate Essential. Get this hygiene routine correct and all other functions can return to normal. Form comes before function.
Function
The function of your body’s systems requires hygiene as well. All systems require you to utilize their function to their fullest capacities so that they don’t become degenerated and weak.
Skeletal
In order for your musculoskeletal system to remain in good shape, it needs routine motion to clean out debris and absorb nutrients. The act of proper movement can increase the flexibility and strength of the structure as well as decrease your susceptibility to osteoarthritis.
Muscular
Weight training and endurance can be seen as forms of hygiene for muscle health. If you don’t use it, you lose it. Plain and simple. Routines build dreams and muscles too.
Cardiovascular
That’s right, without regularly putting your heart through the paces you won’t be able to keep up when you need it the most. It will become weak, calcified and degenerated. Exercise is literally part of your physical hygiene for your arterial system to be cleaned out.
Respiratory
In a similar fashion, the lack of full inspiration and expiration allows for the buildup of debris in the lowest places of the lungs. Full movement of the lungs pushes the sacks to expand their abilities and expel the wastes. Breathing techniques and practices are crucial for anyone in this day and age.
Neurologically
Again, I save the best for last. The Nervous System isn’t necessarily independent of all other systems. For instance, I state up above that your musculoskeletal system can alter the function of your nervous system. But the fact is, that every other system in the human body is dependent on the nervous system.
The nervous system needs great care and hygiene to function. Using a hygiene concept you should know that the brain requires sleep for cleaning. Movement for stimulation. Mental challenges for strength.
Without these preventative measures, the brain like all other systems in the body increases its rate of degenerative entropy. Again, if you don’t use it you lose it.
Hygiene Failure
I have listed hygiene routines from mild to wild and for the mind and body. What is the cost of neglecting your hygiene routines?
Unfortunately, this is a difficult question as it doesn’t convey the same for each person. One person may brush and floss 3 times a day and get cavities while another may neglect their oral hygiene and get away with a clean bill of health.
Our genetic and epigenetic histories play a role in that. Literally, your parents’ routines and habits can affect your position in life. Your plights and your inherent weaknesses are passed down to varying degrees, not through Lamarckism, but through epigenetics.
I recommend reading about Pottenger’s cat experiments to get a feel for generational health impacted by our food choices.
The best thing to do is build routines for yourself that will help future generations build back stronger. By doing this, you are decreasing your chances of degenerative issues and saving your future spawn from a harder life.
Man-Made Remedies
Our world, steeped in advancing technologies, has begun to rely on remedies more than prevention and hygiene.
When we fail at following our routines and maintaining what we have now, we look for the next best thing. Surgeries, medications, dentures, orthotics, and other gadgets are our go-to remedies.
Unfortunately, these remedies are often temporary quick fixes based on decreasing symptoms without correcting the offending behavior.
Metabolic syndrome is a manmade disease of poor routines. No exercise, fake food, and chronic stress place the body into a state of survival. This will develop into diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and hypercholesterolemia.
With current advancements in surgery and pharmacology, we can decrease these signs and symptoms superficially.
Surgically we can reduce someone’s weight without changing their routines.
Pharmacologically reduce cholesterol, diabetes, and hypertension without changing their routines.
When we fail at performing basic hygienic routines for our bodies, we can alternatively treat their signs and symptoms without ever addressing the cause or building the new routine.
This system works if you only measure a decrease in symptomatology. It doesn’t work when the measurements of health come from a different paradigm.
Metabolic syndrome is primarily a western disease. This 2020 Covid pandemic targets those who have any characteristics of metabolic syndrome. Covid-19 death rates are 10 times higher in countries where more than half of the adult population is classified as overweight.
Even with all the medications and a decrease in symptoms on paper, a virus has found a way to exploit these poor health characteristics. Manmade or evolution at its best? You decide.
Chiropractic and Hygiene
Chiropractors are doctors. Maybe not “real doctors” because they don’t prescribe medications or perform surgeries. Instead, they rely on spinal hygiene, prevention, lifestyle and natural remedies to help care for their patients.
People usually seek the care of a chiropractor for two reasons. One is they are injured and presenting with acute or chronic pain. Two, is they are seeking out a practitioner rich in wellness and prevention techniques for healthy living.
When someone comes in seeking relief, it requires me to put on my doctor hat that is used to diagnose their problem and discern what is the best course of treatment. This may not include chiropractic at all.
When someone comes in looking for wellness and prevention, this allows me to put on a completely different doctor hat. The doctor hat that teaches and informs the patient of health tools and techniques. It allows me to adjust purely based on restricted movements of the spine known as Subluxations.
This preventive maintenance of the body is where we can be seen as spinal hygienists. In my opinion, this is what sets us apart from the “real doctors” with their focus on allopathic medicine or symptom relief.
“The doctor of the future will give no medicine but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet and in the cause and prevention of disease.”
-Edison
Spinal Hygiene
It is best to see a chiropractor to understand what level of degeneration and dysfunction your spine is presenting with.
An adjustment allows for the chiropractor to correct the subluxation. In my opinion, the focus should then shift to education on how to prevent the subluxation from returning.
This is where a chiropractor may recommend corrective care in order to restore normal form and function back to the skeletal system.
This may include exercise, posture correction, multiple adjustments, and lifestyle advice.
Some complementary additions to these include Real Food and Water.
Real food for real nutrients to be able to fully nourish the cells is a must. McDonald’s formed cartilage cells can’t be as good as what was intended to be in our bodies.
Water, like food, should be considered essential. Water quality, as well as quantity, make a large difference in cellular exchange as well as degenerative factors.
One Adjustment Action Step
1.) Start with my original post for some basics to consider. 9 Hygiene Standards for the Millennial.
2.) Take the OATH and pick One Adjustment to make every day.
3.) Routines Build Dreams. Address the Chemical Physical and Emotional hygiene practices that keep you clean and help to prevent Dis-Ease
4.)Leave a comment below of a hygienic routine that I have left out or never even thought of.
Hygienic practices are different all over the world. What I have shared are things that come to mind when I think of Hygiene and when I dissect the definition of hygiene. Which as I stated before sounds a whole lot like Wellness. One Adjustment at a time.
Love,
Nick the DC
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