Your Winter Hygiene Checklist

The winter period can be a hard time to negotiate without catching one bug or another. With colds, flu, and all manner of germs in the air it’s more important than ever to ensure you observe the best possible standards of hygiene.

The cleaning supply specialists at System Hygiene can provide a range of anti-bacterial wipes, sprays, and disinfectants to help kill bacteria. But what else can you do?

Wash your hands

It sounds obvious, but a combination of busy lives and lazy habits mean washing your hands regularly can quickly become forgotten. It’s essential to do so, however, if you want to remain healthy through winter. Bacteria will thrive on your hands and can be passed on to everything you touch, including food.

So be sure to wash your hands after you’ve handled food, or after you have been to the bathroom. Use a neutral anti-bacterial soap and remember to scrub your hands thoroughly – it’s the scrub that removes germs, not the temperature of the water.

Have tissues handy

It can be pretty much impossible to avoid getting some sort of cold or infection over the winter, but your life doesn’t come to a standstill just because you have a cold. Make sure you have a packet of tissues handy in your pocket at all times, and ideally in your desk and car as well.

Sneezing can be one of the primary ways of one infecting other people with your germs. Sneezing into your bare hands just means you’ll spread the germs onto anything you touch. So always having a strong tissue to hand will give you something to sneeze into, preventing the spread of any germs and stopping the cold from spreading even further.

Heavy-duty doormats

When the weather turns it becomes difficult to walk anywhere without getting your footwear soaking wet and covered in all kinds of grime. This is where heavy-duty doormats come in, to prevent you and others from tracking filth through your home or workplace.

Heavy-duty doormats will help to clean off any loose grime before people walk through the office or your home. If they do happen to track some dirt through, don’t let it linger – mop it up immediately to prevent it from settling. Grime is not only unsightly, but you have no way of knowing what exactly has been tracked in. Remember to clean the doormats regularly.

Regularly wipe down surfaces

You should already have a routine in place for regularly wiping down the surfaces in your home or workplace, including in the kitchen, bathroom, and at your desk.

If you share a kitchen/bathroom at work it’s wise to carry some antibacterial wipes with you whenever possible, particularly when you’re using the bathroom. Giving the flush handle, the taps, and the door handle a wipe before you use them can help you prevent catching germs.

Similarly in the kitchen, wipe down any drawer handles or utensil handles that you happen to be using. These things are usually handled by multiple people during the day, and you don’t know how many will have washed their hands.

Keeping hygienic through winter

Winter hygiene is easy to observe with just a few alterations to your daily routine. Whether it’s at home or the workplace you could be at risk of catching winter bugs and transferring germs, so to prevent illness striking you or your family, be mindful of these key tips for improving winter hygiene.

Killing the germs before they infect you is much quicker and more comfortable than falling ill and making your immune system do it.