Have you ever taken a shower and felt a drastic change in your mood? Has a self-care day given you paramount confidence? When in a slump, something as small as trimming your nails or cutting your hair may help bring forward feelings of control and satisfaction. This begs the question: Does maintaining good hygiene impact our mental health?

Well, it goes both ways. When we aren’t feeling our best, we tend to skip our self-care routine. This may lead to feelings of incompetence and even self-loathing. According to Mr Sanjesh Shrestha, who is a lecturer of psychology at the Central Department (TU), there may be an indirect correlation between maintaining hygiene and mental health. When one is not up to date with their sanitation, it could impact their physical health, and once the physicality of a person is compromised, then it doesn’t take long for mental adversity to step in.

When I spoke to many men my age, they said that they find their lack of hygiene one of the reasons for the occasional pang of stress in their life. Not only that, this tendency hampers their self-confidence and makes them insecure about the way they look. Mr Narayan Sampahambhe, a graduate of master’s in clinical psychology from TU, says good hygiene is one of the pathways to better mental and physical well-being. Once the self-care routine is dismantled, one can fall into the pit of mental strain. “However, to associate lack of good hygiene as a major course of mental ailment [or vice versa] would be stretching it too far,” he says, adding that there is more to what causes mental difficulties.

According to Shrestha, a person fighting their mental battles seldom gathers the strength to face everyday life and sometimes may be unable to bring themselves to even brush their teeth. “When one is depressed, they simply dismiss the idea of self-care,” he says. The severity of the situation depends on what the individual is battling, adds Shrestha, as different disorders affect the individual differently.

According to research data published on SWNS Digital, women have a better understanding of how to take care of their hygiene than men (52 percent vs 42 percent). Shrestha revealed that social factors affect the data as women feel more pressured to look good, clean, and attractive.

However, some research also how that research shows that women are more likely to have depression than men. If bad hygiene were the only thing that causes mental illness, the former finding wouldn’t hold true. This shows that there isn’t a direct relationship between maintaining hygiene and stable mental health, as there could be countless other reasons for poor mental health.

More than often, the issues of mental health are dismissed as laziness or a lack of hobbies. Individuals who want to reach out to people and try therapy are often dismissed. Like discourses on mental health, an open conversation about hygiene is also somewhat stigmatised.

However, in Nepal, we are seeing mental health finally getting a space in conversations, says Shrestha. But for him, the change is too slow. One way to change that, and bring forward conversations about hygiene and mental health, would be to start at school with the culture of counselling. Counselling is often considered a ‘fancy’ addition accommodated only by luxurious schools. “To open a counselling department doesn’t fall under the priority projects of schools and colleges,” he says.

Shrestha speaks from experience about how parents seem startled when their child is suggested to attend counselling. They seem offended and become defense, as if their child was accused of something. By normalising counselling from a young age, the stigma around mental health issues can disappear, he says.

Though bad hygiene isn’t a major cause of mental health issues, it can act as a warning for suffering individuals. If one notices their interest in looking presentable and cleaning themselves decrease, they can seek help and consider why that is happening. Various unwanted mental hurdles result from smaller instances, like not looking after our bodies or toiling away for so long that it causes mental burnout. So, it is crucial that one looks after their body and follow proper hygiene, not just for our physical health but also for our mental well-being. “As soon as we make discussions about hygiene and mental health more common, both issues can be dealt with without shame,” says Sampahambhe.