I wash my hands after I use the bathroom. After I pet my dogs. After I walk my dogs. After I pick up “stuff” my dogs might have left behind. After I sneeze or blow my nose, if I’m in the middle of cooking. After I handle raw chicken/turkey/etc. After I’ve been to any store or other public place. Usually, as soon as I walk in my house, I wash my hands.
And after I’ve finished using the weights and/or the machines at the gym, and then again after I’ve used the treadmill or the elliptical.
I did get a cold this winter, but it was the first one in a very long time. I think this hand washing stuff really works.
I wash my hands in all the instances listed above and I rinse/wash vegetables and fruit. Strange to imagine that some think that this sort of behavior is excessive.
@VeryHappy, I would add the following to your list: (1) As soon as possible after riding on mass transit (I think that little kids wipe their noses on the poles in subway cars and buses), and (2) before emptying the dishwasher.
However, I probably wash my hands fewer times per day total than you do because I have no pets and don’t belong to a gym.
I also got only one cold this winter. But the skin on my hands is cracking, despite frequent use of moisturizer.
Huh. I hadn’t thought about doing it before I empty the DW. Not a bad idea.
When I was in my twenties, I had no idea that washing hands could prevent illness. I mean, I suppose I knew this intellectually, but somehow I thought it didn’t apply to me. Guess what – I was sick a lot.
W works in a hospital and is told to wash her hands all the time as you can imagine. However, they say if you don’t wash your hands in warm/hot water for at least 30 seconds you may as well not do it at all.
I wash my hands in all the instances that have been mentioned. I wash before setting the table, after I take out the garbage because I open the top of the can, after I sort my mail. Basically I wash after touching anything someone else may have touched, and before I touch anything someone in my family may touch after me.
Aside from everything else mentioned I wash my hands or use purell after I wipe a cart handle at the store.
Wash my hands also before using a laptop. Everyday I wipe it down with a cleansing cloth.
It doesn’t gross me out if someone else doesn’t wash their hands. Even if I see it happen in a public rest room. Though sometimes I wonder if they prefer to use the purell they have in their handbag.
I wash my hands a lot as I work at a school. However, if I washed them everytime I petted the dog, I would never get anything else done. I don’t think the dog has ever gotten me sick whereas first graders…
I work it a public library. You should see how black my hands become after handling all those books. Plus, I watch people wipe their noses and then hand me their library cards (Yuck, yuck, yuuucckk!!!). I scratch itches on my face or rub my eye through my shirt sleeve. I wash multiple times at work. I wash before leaving work, then again as soon as I get home before I touch anything else. Plus all the OP’s instances.
After the bathroom, before I touch or cook food, after touching raw food, and anytime I get anything on them. I use soap, very warm water and hum the abc’s. I haven’t had a cold in a long time. There is a thought out there that we’re too clean now and more susceptible to illnesses and asthma and allergies because of it.
My kids and in laws just got food poisoning at a local restaurant. I called to let them know and they pretty much said it was impossible because their calamari was frozen. I just said, but are you sure your employees all wash their hands after using the bathroom? You can’t control that at all.
I have read a few times that when people claim to have a stomach bug, it’s almost always food poisoning.
I’m in the minority with @sax, after the bathroom and raw meat…oh and after emptying the litter box. I don’t get the flu or pneumonia shots and I usually don’t get sick. Which I attribute to giving my immune system something to do…
I might wash less than some of you here and I’m a clinical microbiologist!
Of course, at work, we wear gloves and wash between glove changes.
Before leaving the lab to eat, use restroom, use phone, go to meetings.
At home I’m probably middle of the road. Certainly after bathroom, before eating, before bed. Exposure to some bacteria does enable your body to build immunity. Not advocating raw chicken salmonella ingestion, of course!
I wash my hands about an average amount at home but lots of times at work. A coworker freaked me out when I started here, admitting he does not wash his hands after bathroom #1.
“I know where that’s been all morning,” he jokes. All I can think is, “Yeah, inside your underwear with your considerable flatus activity.”
I wash them all the time if I have touched anything public or germ-ridden like an ATM, credit card, currency, handrail, doorknobs, etc. When out in public I wash them before, and after, I use the bathroom. My last cold was in the middle of the H1N1 scare–2009—and the one before that was in 2004. I’ve been told it makes me more susceptible to colds. That said, I do spend a small fortune on moisturizer during the winter.
I work two jobs, one in a healthcare facility so I use the handrinse at every elevator and figure that takes care of that (unless I use the bathroom). My other job is a visiting social worker for psych patients and I usually want to shower when I get home, never mind washing my hands occasionally lol.
Lots. Especially after using the communal computers at work where my sniffling colleague teaches the hour before I use the room, and after students touch the mouse and keyboard while giving their oral presentations. After grading student papers. I haven’t quite gotten to carrying Purell around with me, but I like the public stations.
I’m getting fewer colds now that I’m taking walks in the open air rather than going on the treadmill in the gym.
