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Topics: Health
Lucy Devine
A doctor has settled a debate on whether you should wash a specific body part in the shower.
Everyone has their own shower habits. Some will wash their hair first, some will wash it last. Others will do a bit of both.
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While most people agree there are some body parts which you should definitely wash every time, it seems there's a few that we're not so sure about.
For example, do we need to wash our ears if we're also washing our hair? And what about our feet?
Well, a doctor has weighed in on the answer and somewhat settled the debate about one body part in particular.
Raj Punjabi and Noah Michelson, who are hosts of Huffington Post's Am I Doing It Wrong? podcast, decided to quiz Dr Divya Shokeen, founder of Ocean, Skin and Vein Institute in California, about showering.
Dr Shokeen explained whether people need to wash one body part in particular - their legs.
“I don’t think you do [need to wash them],” Dr Shokeen said. “Unless you’re, like, aggressively sweating and you just biked 20 miles. Then, yes, please wash your legs.
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“I think water dripping down or soap dripping down [your legs] is OK [for cleansing]."
Dr Shokeen claimed that it's probably better not to manually wash the legs because we risk drying out or irritating the skin.
She also explained that when washing other areas of our body, where bacteria tend to flourish - for example, the armpits - it's best to leave the soap to do its thing for at least a minute.
“Those need at least a minute to allow [your cleanser] to work,” she added.
“That doesn’t mean you have to be rubbing down there for a minute. If you have the time, then do it, but you can suds up [those areas] and leave it [while you wash other parts], so your cleanser has to have the chance to actually do something.”
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Another hygiene-related question that people often want to debate is whether it's best to shower in the morning or evening.
Well, a doctor has finally answered the question.
Dr Jason Singh took to TikTok where he explained that overnight, ‘your body can accumulate germs such as bacteria and fungus’.
Singh said this happens through ‘processes like sweating and shedding skin cells’.
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“The by-product of these creates an odour and so morning showers cleanses the bacteria and skin secretions that have built up," he explained.
But the doctor also noted how having a shower at night time has ‘three things going for it’.
Firstly, he said warm shows trigger ‘the release of melatonin’, a sleep-inducing hormone. And then, when you’re drying off and cool down, your body is set up for a better sleep.
Another benefit is that it washes away ‘the entire day’s grime’.
So, which would you choose?