FROM SANITARY TO INSANITY: Experts believe that too much cleanliness is not safe for us

Nowadays, cleaning is not enough.

Objects should be sprayed, cleaned, bleached, sanitized and cleaned to remove 99.9% of the germs.

But do we really need to be obsessive cleaners like Monica's Friends?

Scientists say that excessive cleaning could further damage our immune system and our digestive system in the long run.

Dr. David Strachan has suggested that the microbiota, the micro-organisms in our bodies, play a vital role in training our bodies to fight potential threats.

Strachan's "hygiene" hypothesis was the first to propose that children raised in extremely clean environments are more likely to suffer from asthma and allergies.

Her article says that pets, farms and daycares expose children to good germs, which helps them develop tolerance from a very young age.

According to the theory, when we over-clean things around us, our internal defense weakens, making us vulnerable to disease in the future.

According to microbiologist Mary Ruebush, we can strengthen our immune system by allowing early exposure to microbes.

Extreme cleaning can hinder this and "disrupt the normal flora that keeps you healthy by competing with pests," says Ruebush.

So how do we find a balance between clean and too clean?

According to the Royal Society of Public Health, "targeted hygiene" is a way to keep the germs right and avoid the bad ones.

Tactics tries to control cleaning practices to focus on places where there are bad microbes (pathogens) to prevent the spread of infections and diseases.

"It is now understood that what is important, is the diversified exposure to microbes that are mostly harmless, rather than infections caused by harmful microbes," the report says.

Being clean is healthy for us and practices such as washing your hands, cleaning food contact surfaces, washing dirty clothes are still considered extremely necessary.

Like many things in life – having a good balance between too much and too little is the way to go.