If you’re in the habit of sticking cotton buds (aka Q-Tips) in your ears, snap out of it – that’s the latest advice from the American Academy of Otolaryngology, which studies diseases of the ear and throat.

By stuffing cotton buds inside your ears, you’re risking gunking them up with an excess of earwax, a medical condition called cerumen impaction. Your ears are designed to clean themselves by gradually pushing earwax out, but by using buds you might be pushing all that excess wax back in.

Earwax isn’t the most pleasant substance to think about, but it does an essential job of keeping your ears healthy. The substance not only cleans out the ears, but stops them from drying out, and helps the ears to sweat naturally.

The wax also blocks any dirt particles trying to invade our ear canals. Normally, through processes like chewing – or any jaw movement – and growing more skin cells, the earwax gets slowly pushed out, hardens, and then drops off our ears or gets washed away.

Doctors recommend going for a check-up if you notice a build-up of earwax, hearing loss, or ringing in your ears (which could be tinnitus).

This isn’t new advice and is something experts have been saying for years, so let’s hope the message finally gets through – cotton buds have their uses, but cleaning your ears out is not one of them.