Health hacks: steer clear of these things to live healthier

Making a sacrifice always sounds a bit painful – especially when it comes to health. Not surprising, really. The list of banned things for a healthier lifestyle is long and includes pretty much everything that’s fun and tastes good. But don’t worry, the health hacks I’m about to share with you don’t want to take anything you hold dear away from you. Not even your time.

Rather, all these tips allow you to improve your well-being by simply doing nothing all. Okay, this should actually say, «by not doing certain things». The good thing about it is that you’ll hardly miss anything, I promise.

Health hack 1: keep the car windows shut

Exposure to fine particulate matter can cost you nearly three years of your life expectancy. In 2019 alone, air pollution led to more than four million premature deaths globally from high-risk diseases such as asthma, lung cancer, heart disease, or stroke. «This makes air pollution one of the greatest environmental risks to health», according to the World Health Organization.

Of course, you can’t completely avoid particulate matter: 99 per cent of the world’s population lives in regions where the WHO air quality guidelines aren’t met. But you can at least do something to reduce particulate pollution. So while it’s nice to drive with the car windows open and let the airstream cool you down, a study has shown that you breathe in as much particulate matter, and other unhealthy particles, driving through the city for an hour with the window open as you would otherwise inhale during an entire day. Therefore it’s better to have the windows up and activate the air conditioning’s recirculation function. This reduces pollution by 80 per cent.

Health hack 2: don’t cross your legs

It has long been scientifically proven that sitting for hours on end is unhealthy and can even shorten your life. Therefore, taking regular exercise breaks while working on the computer or even working at a standing desk is recommended. But if you really have to sit at your desk, make sure you do at least one thing: don’t cross your legs at the knees, this makes the unhealthy posture even more precarious.

Firstly, you’re throwing your body off balance: on the side of the crossed leg, your pelvis lifts, and the oblique abdominal muscles (the muscles on the side of the torso) are activated less than when you’re sitting with legs facing forward. «The shoulders, neck and pelvis can all be affected and become misaligned since the spine compensates to keep your centre of gravity above the pelvis. In the worse case, this can lead to scoliosis (abnormal alignment of the spine)», explains Professor Adam Taylor, director of the Clinical Anatomy Learning Center at Lancaster University.

Secondly, according to Professor Taylor, research has shown that sitting with one leg over the other can reduce sperm count and quality in men. In this position, the temperature of the testicles rises to 38.3 °C, but the ideal temperature for sperm production is below body temperature.

Another minus point: «Sitting with legs crossed can put the fibular nerve, in your lower leg, at risk of compression and injury. This can result in numbness, or foot drop. The pooling of blood in your veins can cause your blood pressure to rise too» says the anatomy expert. «Many of the risk factors associated with crossing your legs are likely exacerbated by other underlying issues such as sedentary lifestyles and obesity.»

Health hack 3: don’t use THESE toilets

No, this isn’t a message to say you can’t go for a wee behind the hedge. Instead, as a tip, choosing the right toilet in public can do a lot for your health. A variety of pathogens – from salmonella and cold germs to flu and noroviruses – can lurk in sanitary facilities. However, if there are several WCs in the room, not all of them will be equally contaminated. So you can choose the least evil, that is, the cubicle closest to the front door. The middle cubicles and then the rearmost ones, on the other hand, are the most frequented and therefore the dirtiest, a study by U.S. psychologist Nicholas Christenfeld found.

Even more polluted than the WCs, however, are the taps – unless they can be activated without touching them – which are already touched before washing hands and thus contaminated with any germs that may be present. If you then touch the faucet after washing your hands to turn off the water, these germs can stick to your hands and – if you touch your nose or lips afterwards – enter your body through your mucous membranes, where infection can occur. So it’s best to touch the faucet only with a paper towel, or just leave the water turned on after washing your hands if the next person is already waiting in line anyway.

Speaking of going to the toilet, whether you’re on the road or at home, there’s another important health hack for the loo. When flushing, don’t leave the lid up, but fold it down. The reason: «In addition to the visible drops of water that are generated upon flushing the toilet, smaller droplets that are just micrometres (µM) in diameter also form and are propelled into the surrounding air. These aerosolised droplets could contain faecal bacteria, such as E. coli, and spread disease», writes the Microbiology Society. «Research has found that flushing the toilet with the lid down could reduce airborne particles by as much as 50%.»

Health hack 4: don’t put the heating on

«The ideal room temperature for restful, uninterrupted sleep is between 16.5 and 19 °C, our studies show,» says Robert Rosenberg, medical director of the Center for Sleep Disorders in Prescott Valley, Arizona. «That’s because a cool bedroom helps promote the reduction in core body temperature necessary for a good night’s rest.» According to the experts, it can also help if you sleep naked or with as little clothing as possible.

Another study suggests turning down or turning off the heating because by doing so you can subtly change your fat deposits for the «good» brown fat. «The «good» fat is stimulated by cold temperatures and serves to keep us warm by burning «bad» fat stores,» says study author Francesco S. Celi, M.D. in the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine.

Health hack 5: change up your routine activities

A quick and simple trick for your mental health? Try performing everyday actions with the non-dominant hand. For example, as a right-handed person, you could brush your teeth with your left hand or vice versa. This is a good mindfulness exercise that slows you down, because you also pay more attention to small moments that otherwise rush past you in your daily routine. Plus you’ve done a simple brain training exercise, as suggested by many Alzheimer’s or dementia associations. Changing hands causes new neural pathways to form and brain functions to improve because the other hemisphere of the brain is also activated. This increases creativity (for right-handers) or analytical thinking (for left-handers). You can intensify the exercise by standing on one leg too.

Bonus effect: people who hold their eating utensil in the other hand every so often also reportedly consume up to 30 per cent fewer calories because they eat more consciously, according to researchers at the University of Southern California led by David Neal, who in a study examined factors of impulse control while eating.

As you can see, sometimes, less really is more when it concerns your health. That’s not to say you should be idle. Of course the Dos are more beneficial than the Don’ts and they don’t need to take up too much of your time either. More on that in the part one of this series about healthy hacks.