“A revolution against bathing” .. Does modern man bathe more than he should?

From the moment a man emerges from his mother's womb while still feeling this new world around him, with a fragile body covered with mucus and blood, he is forced to shower before he even meets his mother, and even from the moment a man dies, he is washed with water before the earth becomes clogged.

And between life and death, a close relationship is formed between human beings and the activity of bathing, as some consider it a refreshing morning ritual that helps him to start his day, and others consider it a kind of social prestige, so that the Egyptians call the person who is groomed, unusually, by the nickname “washer.” Of course, most People bathing is the most important ritual of personal hygiene, while there is a last group that has voluntarily chosen to sever their relationship with bathing completely for various reasons.

Prehistoric bathing

We don't know exactly when humans began to care about hygiene and bathing in water to remove dirt from the body, but it may be more than 60,000 years ago, when humans' cousin, Neanderthals, were still alive and roaming the earth with modern humans. In 2015, a group of Spanish scientists at the Catalan Institute of Paleoanthropology and Social Evolution found what they believe is evidence that Neanderthals were not just a primitive, dusty-haired, bowed-back creature that moved in idiocy, but in addition to previous evidence that suggested that they made primitive tools and jewelry and were buried his dead, new evidence also indicates that he took care of his hygiene and recreated the hot water inside the cave after a long day of hunting.

Inside a cave in the Spanish region of "The Abric Romaní", which literally translates to "Gypsy's Coat" in Catalan, scientists have found many treasures that open a window into the life of Neanderthals and how they lived hundreds of centuries ago. Among what they found was a hole near the inner wall of the cave, surrounded by what looked like the remains of a stove, the size of the hole was not large enough to be a luxurious bathtub, but it was at least enough to fill it with some water, so that one of them could submerge his body parts in the basin, one at a time. This means that Neanderthals had more than just a savage life devoid of any manifestations of civilization (1).

This is what we know almost before recorded history, which began only 5,000 years ago, when rivers and waterfalls worked - perhaps - as a beautiful natural alternative to the bathtub and "shower" that we use in our modern world.

In recorded history, specifically between 3300-1300 BC, the Indus Valley Civilization flourished in what is today Pakistan, and they are credited with inventing the first public bathing tub, known as the Great Bath of Mohenjo-daro, whose remains are still Exist to this day.

They were followed by the ancient Pharaonic civilization, which was keenly interested in bathing, hygiene and perfume, as a means of getting closer to the gods, then the Greek civilization came with the invention of the first “shower” in the world, where water rushes from a pipe above the head to flow water over the whole body, and that between the years 500-300 BC Birth (2).

Mohenjo Daro Great Bath - Remnants of the Indus Valley Civilization - Pakistan

To be too clean

But with the discovery of germs and the importance of hand washing and hygiene in general at the end of the nineteenth century, bathing became a basic ritual for the average citizen in many countries of the world, and with the development of plumbing methods and technology used in the bathroom industry, up to the current form of the shower that gives you warm water in one step, Or the bathtub in which you immerse your body in order to relax after a hard day, bathing on a daily basis has become a habit for many peoples of the world, and an essential feature of a well-groomed person. As for whether bathing daily is a societal necessity imposed on us by modern life or just a personal preference, no one knows the truth, not to mention the impact of soap and shampoo advertisements that want to sell more and more packages by paying you to consume them every day (3).

There is no doubt that showering in itself brings many benefits, perhaps the most important of which is that you will not alienate people around you because of your smell, and it gives a sense of recovery or relaxation depending on the temperature of the water you use, and keeps your body clean, but have you ever asked yourself if you Maybe you shower more than you should?

Is there such a thing as a superfluous shower at all?

It seems to be the case, despite the benefits of bathing that may seem self-evident, exaggerating it exposes the skin to dryness, as it strips the protective layer and makes it crack, which exposes it to infection, in addition to the negative effects of oils and perfumes added to bath products, which may result in more dryness. Skin allergies, hair loss, and possibly some diseases such as eczema or psoriasis.

The other thing is that just as antibacterial soap kills harmful bacteria, it also kills the beneficial symbiotic bacteria that live on the skin safely, and sometimes even contribute to the body's defense against disease-causing bacteria.

The absence of good bacteria upsets the balance of this process and allows more virulent strains of harmful bacteria to thrive, causing another catastrophe: antibiotic resistance.

In addition to all this, excessive sterilization deprives your immune system of exposure to low levels of microbes and dust that the body needs to build an immune memory that will protect you the next time you are exposed to the same microbe, so showering too much may lose your immune system ability to perform that function as it should (4).

Friendly Microbes

The microbes that live on human skin form the so-called "skin microbiome", which is linked to the gut microbiome, and together they form a axis that connects directly to the brain called the gut-brain-skin axis. The importance of this unique axis is evidenced by the intertwined relationship between dermatology, psychiatry and gastrointestinal diseases. For example, psoriasis, a skin disease, may cause depression in sufferers, and at the same time, depression worsens psoriasis cases, in an endless vicious cycle (5). Similarly, nervous tension that affects the brain, causes changes in the gut microbiome, and as a result, the skin is affected and the chances of developing acne increase, which in turn may increase the level of stress in adolescents, which raises the level of stress hormones that affect the intestines, and so on. (6).

In their quest to confirm the importance of the skin microbiome in maintaining health, David Whitlock and his colleagues at AOBiome conducted a study using a strain of bacteria called Nitrosomonas eutropha, which oxidizes ammonia, the substance that the body produces with sweat. . Inspired by the idea of ​​horses rolling in mud, David Whitlock turned out to be hunting for ammonia-oxidizing bacteria, inspiring researchers to separate this bacterial strain from the mud. In the presence of 24 volunteers, half of them sprayed live bacteria on the face and scalp, while the other half sprayed a placebo for a week, and everyone was evaluated after two weeks (7).

Participants who used the real bacteria reported a significant improvement in complexion compared to the other sample, and although the research sample is small, it highlights this promising range that could be developed further in the future.

But David Wiltock didn't stop, and took it to a higher level, as he personally tested the bacteria on his body, when his body stopped smelling of sweat.

From here, this team's leading company in the field of skin cosmetics began releasing the bacteria packaged in a spray bottle called (Mother Dirt AO + Mist) with the aim of helping people restore the ammonia-producing bacteria that we lost due to excessive showering with soap. .

And this wasn't the only product of its kind, as the market for vital skin support products appears to be on the rise, growing 300% in just 4 years (8).

no to shower

On the other hand, there are those who tweet completely out of the flock, and instead of bathing regularly without exaggeration, he decided to stop showering completely, while only cleaning the parts of the body that get dirty only if necessary.

Not only are we talking about ordinary people like you and me, but some celebrities have openly declared that they never bathe, such as the beloved actors Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis, and even the American actor Jake Gyllenhaal, who claimed in his interview with Vanity Fair that our bodies can clean themselves by themselves, which is This is, of course, incorrect (9).

As for the correct and real reasons behind the relatively new trend to dispense with showering completely, they can be summarized in three axes: maintaining skin health, saving water consumption, and finally saving the expenses of buying shower products.

To put it into practice, Dr. James Hamblin, a public health physician and science editor, refrained from showering for a while, and documented the results of his experiment in a long article published in The Atlantic in 2016. James notes that one The reasons that prompted him to do so is that after you have removed all the natural oils from your skin using bath soap or loofah (loofah), you must re-moisturize your skin using countless oils and moisturizing creams, a task that seemed - from his point of view - absurd for some thing, also expensive(10).

As he continued the experiment, James after a while found that his body had stopped smelling sweat;

Because he gave his skin the opportunity to restore the natural balance between the bacteria that cause the smell of sweat and other strains of bacteria that live on the skin, except for his hands, these specifically must be washed with soap constantly to prevent diseases.

He did not stop here, but published a detailed book on the matter under the title "Clean: The New Science of Skin and the Beauty of Doing Less".

This trend may seem very exciting and tempting, but it does not get the full support of dermatologists and citizens alike, as many celebrities have stated that they shower daily, and even several times a day, denouncing that there are other celebrities who claim not to shower.

In general, dermatologists tend to a routine that includes showering two or three times a week, for no more than 3-5 minutes, focusing on the areas most prone to perspiration, balancing hygiene and moisturizing the skin and preventing dryness. The same goes for washing hair, in order to preserve the natural oils secreted by the scalp, the number of shampooing times should be moderate. Of course, there is no one routine that is suitable for everyone. Just as the nature of our bodies and the extent of their sweat varies, our lifestyles vary between an active life and a leisurely one, so you have to find a moderate routine that is appropriate for your life (11).

We also have to take into account the global water crisis, especially in Africa, which is already threatened by drought. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, an average person consumes 9.4 liters of water per minute in the shower, which means that you use 47.3 liters if you only take 5 minutes to shower, and to imagine with me what this number means, you just have to look at the water heater In your bathroom, if it has a capacity of 50 liters, this means that you are consuming the entire water heater tank in each shower (12). This number increases or decreases depending on the length of the shower and the rate at which the water flows from the showerhead, but it is still a very scary number. That's a staggering amount of water per person, and what's worse is that you never realize how much water is wasted while enjoying your warm bath.

As it happens on the tongue of the Arabs that the best of things is the middle one, so this proverb applies to showering as well, since too much and too little causes trouble, so perhaps we just have to choose a flexible routine for bathing, according to the nature of the skin, the change of seasons and lifestyle, and that it is limited to two or three times a week. Without using harsh soaps on the skin or exaggerating the use of loofah to scrub the body.

Or maybe - if you have the guts and the money of course - you should replace your deodorant bottle with a bottle of ammonia oxidizing bacteria, so you can save on toiletries and a water bill at the same time.

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