Handbook of Habits
Table of Contents
- Preface
- Wake up when you wake up
- Don't check your phone when you wake up
- Make your bed after waking up
- Do a proper oral cleansing
- When deficating, squat instead of sitting
- Post defecation, wash your anal area instead of wiping
- Give your body some exercise
- Start your day with a bath
- Use morning hours for self improvement
- Plan your day
- What next?
Post defecation, wash your anal area instead of wiping
Post defecation, people generally clean their anal area either by wiping and washing. Of these two methods, washing is the safest, cleanest and the most satisfying. To substantiate these claims, here is a comparison.
When you wipe something, you clean it by pressing it against the surface and wiping off whatever can be wiped. This often leaves a thin layer of residue on the surface. Whereas when you wash, the fluid acts as a substance for the waste to dissolve in, thus leaving no such residue layer on the surface.
Putting it in the context, wiping post defecation with a dry material can leave a thin layer of faecal residue and bacteria around your anal area. A wet material may reduce the residue, but because of the lack of fluid, it will not eliminate the residue. This residue can be many fold dangerous to women because of the open nature of their genitalia. Bacteria and faeces could infect it.
With wiping, you also risk the development of rashes because of the wiping action, allergy because of the wiping material or injury to the anus in cases of haemorrhoids.
On the other hand, cleansing with water mitigates all these risks.
There are two ways you can clean with water:
- by spraying water from a bidet or a spraying faucet, and expecting the water to clean your anal area completely.
- Or, by using your hands in tandem with water to wipe your anal area to complete cleanliness.
While both works, the later technique is the mildest, safest and cleans the most for the following reasons:
- It cleans the most because nothing can beat the expressiveness and manoeuvrability of our hands when it comes to cleaning. A water jet cannot match.
- It is safest because it is you cleaning and therefore you can move anticipating haemorrhoids, rashes or any injury around that area and clean satisfactorily.
- It is the mildest because your fingers are part of your own body with no compounds to cause allergies to your anal area. And you can adjust the intensity of your touches as per the requirement.
This technique, where your hands mildly come in contact with your faeces seems unhygienic, uncultured and regressive to most people. The above points prove that it is the most hygienic method for the anal area and so long as your wash your hands with soap post cleansing, it is safe for the rest of the body too.
On being called uncultured, calling the most hygienic method as uncultured and less hygienic method as cultured doesn't make much sense. Another way to look at it is that we are all animals biologically, and defecation, hygiene and health are biological requirements that overpower social or cultural definitions.
On being called regressive, there is no reason to move to a new method when it isn't as good as the old one. While the disgust towards one's own faeces is understandable, allowing it to cloud your judgement and actions isn't.
Corrections?
We base our writings on science and reasoning, but we could be victims of cognitive biases whilst doing our research. If there are any inaccuracies in our writings, please do let us know.