Getting your hands dirty is good for you
bbc.com
bbc.com
Walking barefoot, over all manner of surfaces, feels good, increases your connection to your surroundings, and slows you down.
I've done it lots, both in the countryside and in the city. You have to watch out for spiky plants and fox shit in the country, and in the city you soon learn which surface textures require more care :-)
"Where would I find enough leather to cover the entire surface of the earth? But with leather soles beneath my feet, it's as if the whole world has been covered." - Shantideva, 8th century Buddhist monk
Last week I was walking my dog and he stepped on glass or something that gashed open part of his paw pad.
Do you feel walking barefoot is worth the risk of catching this and other potentially hazardous diseases?
[1] https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/how-a-worm-gave-the-so...
If you count cells and genes instead of mass, every human hosts more non-human life than human. Call them parasites and delete them and die.
The argument was only to point out that just because labels are black & white doesn't mean life is black & white, and treating a label as reality is stupid.
No one went so far as to say "everyone should go get hookworm". That would also be a stupid thing to say, and more to the point: a stupid thing to think anyone was saying.
In that context it seems like barefoot shoes would still work. They are essentially foot condoms, so you get most of the same sensation without the potential ickiness.
How did the southern US solve this issue? They just started building their latrines deeper.
That powerwashing sprays it around everywhere though, and the contamination surface is massive.
Sure if you eat the poop in your backyard you might get something so that is always important to think about!
the only neighborhoods where I don't see this are the ones where there's some nice retired older person who diligently cleans the shit up. but it's not like they bleach the spot, they just pick up most of the poop. so yeah, there's feces everywhere
it also doesn't help that we have bottom tier public restrooms available on a per-capita basis, at least here in the US: https://thronelabs.co/blog/where-have-all-the-public-restroo...
Having said that, I've observed four cases where dog poop is more likely left behind.
1. Small dogs - owners of small dogs seem far more likely to leave dog poop behind. Perhaps because they think the poop is itself small?
2. Older owners (often owners of small dogs, but not always) - seem to care less.
3. Off leash dogs in parks - will often poop at the far edges of parks while their owners chat. Edges of parks and near bushes are minefields.
4. Rainy days - people just want to get home, clean off their dog and be done. So they seem more likely leave poop behind.
problem is that it requires municipalities and counties to take ownership and they don't give a shit and thus we get the shit we deserve
Pet owners should know to bring bags with them, as they are taking the pet out for it to shit somewhere other than their yard.
It's 100% an asshole pet owner problem. Owning a pet that is shitting somewhere other than your own yard means bringing bags on walks and being prepared to hold that shit filled bag in your hand for the rest of the walk until you can throw it away at home.
It can be partially mitigated by having trashcans and poop bag dispensers, but I've stepped in dog shit next to a poop bag dispenser. Because having trashcans and bags be available doesn't change asshole pet owner habits.
Doesn't take long to build up a good enough callus that even sharp gravel is tolerable.
That's really remarkable.
Our body didn't get the memo that for the last 200 years water and food are clean now and bacteria is fought with antibiotics.
Getting the immune system to not freak out at everything it detects via just touching grass is the best news I've read today.
Nevermind. Just saw people are already doing it.
> Rapamycin, an organ-transplant drug, has become popular after research found it could extend lifespans in other species. The longevity biohacker community uses rapamycin at substantially lower intermittent doses (3 to 8 mg once weekly), versus transplant doses (typically 2 to 5 mg daily).
Too often there is this black-white level of thinking (not pointed at you) in health that causes people to act against their self-interest.
edit: the fact that this type of paper is coming from an ecologically-focused study, rather than a medical journal-based study gives me pause, too.
"I have a bucket of mud, in which I stick my hands for 15 minutes every morning.
Every weekend, I inoculate at a 1:5:5 ratio with biologically active stream dirt (after petri-dishing to check for activity), and a mix of poor-quality soil cover, and some compost; I finish by adding a 10-10-10 balanced fertilizer.
Recently, I've been seeing if there are any additional benefits to smearing all over my arms; I'm conducting a 3 month/3 month comparison experiment, with a washout period in-between...
Don't forget to buy my exclusive eBook!"
“Pair it with our full spectrum sun lamp and you can have all the benefits of playing outside from the comfort of your standing desk”.
“Yes.”
Do I need to wear sunscreen in front of my desk too now? Will the body cream include it?
Too many questions. I'm going outside.
- Skin cancer is by far the least deadly type of cancer and nearly always just requires some low-risk skin removal.
- Getting a light tan feels amazing. Your whole body feels warmer.
- Vitamin D.
You know what feels even better? Not getting skin cancer.
> Vitamin D
Easily obtained from supplements.
Sure, you can always come back that you can take anti-depressants, and try to use some sort of sun-mimicking light, but then we're really going to extremes to avoid the sun altogether.
So is exposure to the sun, at the right times, in moderation, with appropriate but not extreme protection okay?
Depends on your personal risk tolerance. For majority of people, probably yes: the benefits (especially the mental ones) would outweight the small risks.
It's good as long as you don't get sunburn or skin cancer...
> Do I need to wear sunscreen in front of my desk too now? Will the body cream include it?
That's the sort of thinking we need, champ - you just earned yourself a promotion to Chief Product Officer. :)
too much sun ages you badly even without any sunburn. Hot dog skin.
"I take my preworkout, do my exercise, then I sit for 12 minutes at 90 degrees in sauna, before three minutes in the cold plunge-pool at 8 degrees, before going to sauna again for 19 minutes and I finish with a seven minute warm shower".
Just the thought of looking at a watch in a sauna, and timing things minute by minute sounded exhausting.
I assume going to sauna takes an hour, it might be I leave it on for a couple of hours, but beyond that the minutes inside/outside are a mystery and I like it like that. Same story with being outdoors in a cabin/cottage. I might dig up some plants, or move the hammock around, but whether I get (literally) dirty is just down to whatever random things I've done that day!
Just this summer I was at a cottage by Vänern (the largest lake in Sweden), the sauna was built right at the lake with a pier setup for jumping into it, we had a party going late into the night where you constantly moved from the sauna into the lake, out of the lake, have chats, a beer, into the sauna again, rinse and repeat for some 8-10 hours. I have no idea exactly how long I was in the sauna but it was definitely more than a couple of hours in the whole affair :)
Yes, I definitely do agree with that. I too love what you're describing - we have some of that in Poland too :)
However, I was not sure if we're talking about it - or some American version I know only from various memes - where people are coming in with phones and in shoes.
I understand that as the general act of getting up, starting the sauna, going for your clothes change, resting a couple times, going to the kitchen for water, shower, switch off, kitchen again, whatever... you've filled an hour of your time.
I said "was" because 2010 was, in fact, the last edition of the event:
> On 7 August 2010, two competitors were removed from the sauna and brought to the hospital in critical condition after six minutes of 110 °C (230 °F) heat
1. Have a shower.
2. Sit in the sauna, and throw water on the stones. Stay there for 5-15 minutes, drinking a beer and sometimes listening to music. Depends on the mood what kind of duration I enjoy, and what kind of music I have. If alone music is nice, if with a friend or two then we have silence and conversation instead.
3. Come out and sit on the balcony, to have a little break.
4. If I still feel like it go back to step one, and have a quick shower before going back. Otherwise have a longer shower, and check that the heater is going to shut down soon.
The Hustle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_o7qjN3KF8U
"Hey <smartwatch>, set a timer for 12 minutes" doesn't sound very exhausting.
I can also cancel it just as easily, if it's exhausting. Which--I'm finding it hard to understand why it would be.
I don't schedule my life like that at all, I kinda wander around all day. But the idea of a reminder that I specifically asked for? It's the only kind of reminder I want, actually. It'll keep me from the actually-exhausting habit of checking my watch or wondering how long it's been.
There are days when I walk in and immediately nope-out after a couple of minutes, and that's usually a sign that I'm getting sick.
But when it stops feeling good that's the time to leave, or stop for the evening.
If it's a very humid sauna at 90°F, then your body can't regulate itself with sweat evaporation.
You don't take your watch into the sauna! It's way too hot! I use a plain mechanical kitchen timer (outside the sauna). I've seen hourglasses that are designed to withstand the heat inside the sauna, but they're obviously not configurable to various increments.
More seriously: apparently studies show that using a Finnish (dry) sauna 5-7 times a week is good for longevity. You don't have to use them that way, but if that's your goal, it probably makes sense to fit it into your routine, and it's tough to do that without planning how long it will take.
Not quite but close enough :D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWzWwx8T3nE
If we could only get them to collaborate, we could get some real knowledge out of it!
Kidding… I love them.
For medicine and nutrition...not so much.
Really it’s the logical conclusion of living your whole life by studies-show. Studies show that friends are good for you. That’s why I have friends. Studies show that laughing is good for you. That’s why I indulge in merry company. Studies show that dirt is good for you. That’s why I go off the beaten asphalt.
--- My Treadwater Desk
If you're the CEO of company, like me, you do a lot of sitting and talking. And all the evidence points to sitting being a disaster health-wise. As a father it's my responsibility to take care of my health over the long term so that my kids, Dagwood and Spaniel, have their father around for a long time. Sure, they don't see much of me because I'm building Yellow Yellow, but I want to be there when we can all enjoy the fruits of my labors.
So, I looked into the current fads running through Silicon Valley. NoSitting has displaced NoSQL as the current buzzword and there are two current solutions: standing up and walking.
At Yellow Yellow we like to blaze our own trail and in NoSitting we're no exception. But rather than standing up all day (which kills your legs and leads to varicose veins---a major problem if you plan on spending your retirement years in the Caribbean on the beach) or walking on a treadmill (which causes wear and tear on your ankles, knees and hips) I've come up with a far better solution.
The Treadwater Desk.
In our basement we had a disused well from back before our brownstone had municipal water. It didn't take much to fill the well with water and a bit of carpentry later and I had my laptop and an Apple Magic Mouse (wrapped in Saran wrap).
Now my day starts by changing into a suit (in this case a wet suit) and plunging into the chilly waters of my treadwater desk. That blast of icy water is better than any espresso from the Daily Grind and really gets me in the mood for work. Also, the vasoconstriction of most of my body means more blood for my brain to keep Yellow Yellow running.
Then it's treading water while Skyping with my team. I've found that using Siri I can dictate emails without a problem and the Magic Mouse is working well.
And let's face it, we all came from the sea originally and so treading water is natural for us all. It's also aerobic and far easier on the joints than walking. It's also a full body workout. Rather than just working on my legs I get every muscle moving. And the health benefits of that are well known.
It's also a metaphor for what it's like to be a startup CEO: I'm literally keeping my head above water all day long and if I don't keep making an effort I (and Yellow Yellow) would go under.
Finally, I'm planning to add Epsom salts to the water to increase buoyancy and help keep my skin in tip top condition.
[1] The inventor of double stealth mode (the public doesn't know what we're building and neither do we). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4166183
Washing in the river used to be normal + good for the body - we do cold plunges now.
Probiotic supplements exist, we used to get those for free.
We're gamifying nature. Not saying it's a bad thing, just amusing to me that it used to be our entire lives and we're using technology to get it into our lives in smaller amounts.
Hard to find anything on it now, and I understand soap was particularly effective against SARS-CoV-2 compared to water alone (can I just call it the COVID-19 virus?) so it looks like the idea is mostly gone now.
I also got a $30 "grounding mat" that you plug into the ground part of electrical socket, and I dunno, it feels amazing to have skin touching it. I put it in bed and literally slept the best I have in years in the last two night, by far. Comments online generally are snake oil, but many others are first person accounts saying that for whatever reason, the grounding mat worked for them. (I have theories that the people who it does nothing for are those who already have an outlet. Like a dog where you're in nature and on walks, and also a dog can do the discharge for you). Other comments online are stories of how when the mat is plugged to ground, their cats love sitting on it, but if unplugged, the mats are ignored. That seems like some study that would be interesting at animal shelter, seeing if animals can tell and prefer.
But anyway, wondering what others opinions on this topic are.
This entire idea of charging or discharging your body for some physiological effect is fundamentally flawed. It is indeed true that touching the ground will change your electrical potential to that of the ground, however that's as far as it goes, the rest is just nonsensical.
Let's start with the very first part of that, specifically changing your electrical potential to match the ground. The problem with this is that the ground is 0V because we define it as 0V, not because of any sort of fundamental property. Between two points on the Earth you can see hundreds of kilovolts. So the obvious question is why should the electrical potential of a particular piece of soil where your grounding rod is installed be physiologically preferable to whatever potential your body happened to be at before?
Now lets go on to the next part of what these scam artists usually claim. That is that the Earth's electrons enter your body and do good things of some description. When you touch the ground some small charge does enter or leave your body, however that stops nearly instantly when the potentials equalise[1]. How is the Earth meant to to keep putting electrons into your body if there's no voltage? That's just simply not how electricity works.
As an aside, note that I said enter or leave. A positive static charge and a negative static charge can both easily build up in your body. Therefore any claims that specify that electrons enter your body (or leave you body) is immediately nonsensical because it could go either way.
I'll leave it to someone else to explain all the nonsensical biological claims that follow on from the already fundamentally wrong electrical side since that's not my area. I will however note that none of these sponsored papers actually show and measurable biological effect, they all just hand-wave about redox reactions.
[1]: Yes, you're coupled to mains wiring and other changing fields that are around, however that's getting too far into the weeds for a short comment. If the claim made by the snake oil salesmen was that a current going through your body is good then they'd also suggest wrapping yourself in an electrical cord to maximise the effect, or just taping batteries to your skin.
Granted there's no evidence for that as of yet, but there was a time when fiber in food was reasonably seen as just inefficient waste that couldn't be digested and so had no benefit, that's part of how we got Wonder Bread and the obesity epidemic.
This is like saying it’s plausible that wearing a bracelet with a small magnet in it will have health benefits. It’s pure woo. There’s no reason to believe this from a scientific angle. It’s perhaps not impossible but it is certainly not plausible.
> there was a time when fiber in food was reasonably seen as just inefficient waste
When was this?
I'm not saying that's "evidence", or that the posted study is valid, but I'm also not aware of any robust studies demonstrating no difference from placebo. A lack of good data is neither positive nor negative.
As for dietary fiber, it wasn't broadly seen as useful for anything other than constipation until the 1970s when it was shown that increased fiber intake reduced colon cancer risk
This isn't true, though. For the majority of human history, humans set up grass and leaf bedding atop campfire ash, using animal furs for additional insulation when needed. Ash and leaves are electrical insulators.
I was thinking more that in the developed world most people have much more separation from anything resembling the ground, both in terms of materials and physical distance that would substantially alter any electrical characteristics.
In the off chance I win the lottery I intend to fund serious robust studies of minor stuff like this. Would be the easiest placebo ever, just internally disconnect some of the mats.
Don’t give them more ideas. Someone will be selling bracelets with batteries in them soon.
Wouldn't shoes ruin the effect?
Science will never show that grounding has any measurable effect on the chemistry of the human body. But it also can't show how conscious awareness may affect quantum wave function collapse probabilities, allowing free will to migrate to the deterministic timeline in the multiverse that most supports its well-being.
In other words, magic only doesn't exist if you don't believe in it.
That’s true. Science can’t show a lot of things that aren’t real.
We know the reason, and it has been studied extensively.
The placebo effect is very strong.
Now, my big caveat here would that one shouldn't confuse effects with explanations. Even if the explanations are pseudoscience, it could still work. But... you really do need to rule out placebo if you want to claim there's an effect.
(The other caveat is that if it's otherwise harmless, and works for you, then it doesn't actually matter if it's "just" the placebo effect.)
If you live alone, get 2 more identical cord. Have your mats cord and the unconnected ones going into a box. Blindly label the cords a b and c.
The unconnected ones end there, the real one continues to the mat. Cycle through your cords every evening. In the morning log your feelings and the cord used. After a month see which cord was the connected one and whether your feelings were correlated with that
I was getting sick constantly, and it turned out I had chronic sinusitis, and surgery made it much much better.
(Just friendly advice, I know nothing about your situation).
glad it was just poor hygiene :P
Regular mouthwash and even antibiotics won’t get rid of it, but a solution of vinegar, lemon juice and salt will.
Maybe you could get the same quality of life improvement without decreasing other's.
That GenZ and Gen Alpha have started doing this thing they call “private podcasting”. Where they invite a friend over and discuss topics like one of those podcasts where dudes just talk about stuff…but they don’t record it or post it anywhere.
I was stunned. Is this generation really so socially starved by the attention parasites that human beings are starting to reinvent “hanging out” or “just having a conversation”.
It’s so ridiculous I just refuse to believe this is how they actually think and this has to be some kind of rage bait. I pray that it’s rage bait because if it isn’t we failed our children badly.
All that to say that I get similar vibes from the “grtting your hands dirty is actually good for you” thing. It just screams that entire generations of people have been stunted by helicopter parenting that this just seems like novel information. It seems we’ve completely abdicated our duty as parents and dumped our responsibility to educate our children onto profit seeking media companies. And that terrifies me.
But more like…what if this is actually true.
I was walking down the bike path outside my apartment complex some years ago and a lady started a conversation, which started off normal but quickly turned to Reiki and after a few minutes she ignored every social hint to change the subject and just REALLY wanted to talk about energy pathways, life force and other woo-woo shit until I had to physically cut off the conversation by awkwardly walking away.
Also Steve Jobs died because he tried to cure his cancer with fucking fruit.
So yes, I have zero problem believing a minority of sheltered, internet-brained GenAlphas out there are doing "private podcasting". Statistically every adult has met at least one person who secretly enjoys eating literal shit.
When I say "come as a surprise" I mean they would be unable to articulate the exact mechanisms behind the health benefits before being told what they are or that they exist. Liking a thing and presuming it must have health benefits aren't the same.
Naturally, it's possible to take this too far; letting the conversation flow naturally before occasionally snapping back to the agenda is both more enjoyable and often more productive.
...this is also a common podcast format.
I have never heard the phrase "private podcast" used in this sense before (vs the group / company internal sense), but... I kinda like it; sets up some potential useful expectations!
I do subscribe to it myself but not out of evidence. It’s just vibes. Built my daughter a little dirt box with grass and edible herbs so when she would muck around at five to six months she could do it in there on the balcony of our San Francisco apartment and she enjoyed destroying the plants so at the worst she got some fun out of it.
Or, to put it a different way,
> Cars have windows and can go. Houses have windows and can’t go. So it’s not the windows that make the car go
If it's just you and one species of bacteria, you're closer to a circumstance that would call for the activation of such behavior than if diversity is high.
So it's not that the bacteria are intrinsically good or bad, but that the different circumstances call for calm or aggressive behavior, and all your friends going missing cues aggressiveness in species who have evolved by filling that niche in the past.
For one it's just competition. If you have regular contact to a diverse set of microorganisms chances are higher that they will keep each other populations in check. The dose makes the poison applies here too in some narrow sense.
Additionally (or even mainly) our immune system always on guard (me/not me) gets to play around with the obvious stuff and not be overwhelmed or be "bored" but constantly trained/tamed. We have evolved to have constant contact to a diverse set of microorganisms which modulate our immune system e.g. through toll-like receptors.
As an extreme case some people develop some natural immunity to the tetanus toxin through regular exposure to a extreme variety of microorganisms, obviously this isn't reliable nor a gamble remotely worth the risk.
[0]https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3980089/
[1]https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6827147/
Edit: don't know why OP gets downvoted it's a perfectly fine entrance question/bafflement to motivate some deeper digging into microbiology/immunology.
I grew up playing outside in the dirt a lot, but as I got older I liked it less and less because I always felt so itchy when i would go outside, and my nose would get stuffy and my eyes would water.
I am doing weekly shots trying to make it better, but I always get frustrated whenever everyone acts like I should just go out and 'touch grass'
Conversely, trying to keep your hands too clean might create more severe bacteria problems--which is known as: system blow-up.
A good layperson-friendly example of such blow-ups (that are inevitable, due to avoidance of small 'failures') was masterfully depicted in Matthew Lewis's 'The Monk'-- in which he shows how a pious, religious abbot whose piety was not earned (but merely guarded), descends into the worst possible outcomes because his piety and morality was not antifragile (and hence blew up). A fascinating read.
Feeling some pâro, again:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/sep/23/medicalscience.wo...
My point was more that articles like the one on the BBC (or the Guardian for that matter) just contradict themselves every year. I completely stopped reading those "pop science" takes that are only there for clicks.
(To its credit, the Guardian makes place for long form articles that go more in-depth on known knowns and known unknowns.)