For hundreds of thousands of years we lived without an understanding of the importance of bodily hygiene and yet as a species we survived. We were to be sure rough around the edges, had bad teeth, probably always needed a hair cu,t suffered from all sorts of ailments and infections that good basic health hygiene would have protected us from, but life, though hard and in many cases short, went on and as a species we thrived and managed to adapt to living in almost every environment on the planet.
It is very important to remember that the evolution of our species, the development of the human immune system which protects and keeps us from being reabsorbed into the whole of biological and mineral life and crucially allows for the appearance of a separate physical individual, our own birth and all of the physical systems that keep us alive and able to a enjoy a separate existence carry on and function without any intellectual input on our part. From an intellectual point of view our self-image, our self-centered imagination is, though now seamlessly integrated, along for the ride. It could be said that we are just borrowing the body that we awaken in.