You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

ciphergoth comments on Boring Advice Repository - Less Wrong Discussion

56 Post author: Qiaochu_Yuan 07 March 2013 04:33AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (557)

You are viewing a single comment's thread.

Comment author: ciphergoth 07 March 2013 06:07:45AM 14 points [-]

Wash your hands before every meal.

Comment author: ChristianKl 07 March 2013 10:45:34PM 1 point [-]

For what reason? Which concrete benefit do I get from following that advice?

Comment author: Xachariah 08 March 2013 01:04:07AM 12 points [-]

In a study of children in schools, setting up a 'handwashing event' 4x per day cut sick days in half. Another controlled study on hand sanitizer showed a 20% decrease in sick days.

Here's a replication on sanitizer showing 20% reduction in illness rate for college students.
http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/dailys/03/Sept03/090203/75n-0183h-c000075-att-14-vol154.pdf

Here's one in Pakistan where incidence of Pneumonia and Diarrhea in children were cut in half.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16023513

Here's one in China where intensive handwashing programs for child schools cut sickness by ~40%. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17556631

The short of it is 20% to 50% fewer contagious sicknesses, depending on your current habits (assuming what holds true for children or college students holds true for you).

Comment author: maia 08 March 2013 09:43:29PM 4 points [-]

(assuming what holds true for children or college students holds true for you)

This seems like a pretty big assumption for many adults. Children and college students are likely in much closer quarters with many other people than a lot of office workers.

(I'm a college student, though, and will try to take this advice!)

Comment author: [deleted] 07 March 2013 03:48:08PM *  1 point [-]

Except when they come in direct contact with the food, isn't washing hands after going to the bathroom and before cooking enough?

Comment author: juliawise 10 March 2013 02:56:54AM 7 points [-]

Notice how often you touch your lips and the area under your nose. For most people, it's pretty often.

Comment author: tut 10 March 2013 01:13:59PM 3 points [-]

This is true. However, touching your face makes you look uncertain. So it is probably a good idea (as a simple social hack) to stop touching your face.

Comment author: [deleted] 10 March 2013 12:26:04PM 5 points [-]

Then here's some more boring advice:

  • Learn to use eating utensils and napkin properly.

  • Avoid touching your face.

Comment author: Elithrion 07 March 2013 07:33:22PM 5 points [-]

It's probably better to just wash them anyway so you don't have to plan out whether you'll be touching bread and fruits or not.