No soap!

People who know me, know that I have a tendency to be sick. I rarely ever took a REAL vacation because I'd spend my vacation days here and there due to every cold that came down the pike. When I was working at Google it was even worse because there was 4 hours of driving involved every day, and if I was feeling under the weather that would make it MUCH worse, plus the fact that I'd be stuck at work with no way to leave until the shuttle returned to Portland at the end of the day. My illnesses, while not major by any means, have caused me significant problems.

Which is why it's such a landmark for me to say that I've not been sick for over a year, and I have only one thing I can possibly attribute to my newfound increased healthiness.  I could say diet - I've been eating better lately, but honestly my diet hasn't changed THAT much.  I eat more vegetables in general, and maybe less steak, but all in all, the change in foods that I consume are fairly insignificant. No, I'm pretty sure the reason I've not been sick is because of soap.

Or, rather, the lack thereof.

I'm going to rant a little bit here, mainly because this is something that I complained about back in the mid-90's. Antibacterial soap. You see on the label that it kills '99.9% of bacteria', right? That's a pretty good number, until you look at just how MANY bacteria are on you at any one time. A quick googling gives varied numbers between 1500 and 1 million per square cm on the hands, so let's say for the sake of argument 100,000 per square inch, or if the hand has ~20 square inches of area (palm side only) then about 2 million bacteria. 99.9% of 2 million kills all but 20,000. However, those 20,000 are at least semi immune to whatever it was that you're trying to kill them with. That number will double around 30 minutes, then double again, and again... in 2 hours you'll have 160k semi-resistant bacteria on your hands. In 4 hours you're back over 2 million - how many of those will your 99.9% cleaner kill now?

Your immune system is designed to handle the regular bacteria, but not the resistant stuff. This is why we now have superbugs that are resistant against antibiotics. But I digress.

Instead of using soap, I've simply been washing my hands with water. Or if I have dirt or grease/oil on them, a squirt of Doctor Bronners (which is a natural castille oil soap). But after using the bathroom, I don't use the antibacterial soap that EVERY place has installed next to the sink. Not even after I poop.

Let me ask you a question: when you're done going number 2, do you stand up after wiping and wash your hands IMMEDIATELY afterwards? Probably not, because your pants would be around your ankles with your privates all hanging out. So, what do you do? Right - use your HANDS to pull up your pants, zip up the fly, button the clasp, buckle the belt, tuck in your shirt, put your phone away...  And THEN you wash your hands. By this point you've already wiped any fecal material you got on your hands onto your clothes.

So yes, just water. Usually warm, if not hot, but I don't wait around the sink for a minute or two for the water to get warm if it's cold. Rinse, rub, dry, done.

And I do believe that THIS is why I'm not getting as sick as I used to. The worst 'sickness' I've had in the past year+ has been a headache that was probably a combination of not sleeping+hangover+caffiene withdrawal.