Good Hand Hygiene is The Best Line of Defense Against Colds and Flus

Unlike bacterial infections that can quickly be cleared up with a round of antibiotics, with sicknesses caused by viruses like the flu or the common cold, you often have to ride it out. While there are medications that can help ease your symptoms, your immune system must fight the viral infection off.

Why not take it easy on your body and do what you can to avoid catching it in the first place?

Your first line of defense to avoid getting sick this year is simple – Wash Your Hands.
 
That’s right.
 
The simple act of washing your hands frequently with soap and hot water limits the spread of cold and flu viruses and your chance of coming down with them.

Get in the habit of washing your hands whenever you have been out in public, and whenever you can throughout the workday.

Wash them before you eat or drink food and when hot water and soap are not available, use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer.

Why is hand hygiene so important?

 
Because you are more likely to pick those viruses up with your hands than any other way. Sure, having someone cough in your face does not help, but your chances of getting the flu or coming down with the common cold thanks to contact with a handrail or doorknob are much higher.
 
You pick the virus up by moving about your day. It could be touching the handle of a shopping cart or closing a door behind you. It is now on your hands, which is not a big problem by itself. It can not enter through the skin there.
 
The problem arises when you touch your face. It happens a lot more than most of us are aware of.
 
We touch our nose, rub our eyes, or get our fingers too close to our mouth when we eat or cough. The virus makes it to a mucous membrane in any of those areas and it is right where it wants to be.

That is why it is important to wash your hands. It is not some busywork that healthcare professionals give you to make you feel like there is something you can do.

 
It is your best line of defense.

So, what are you waiting for? Go wash your hands.