It is recommended to avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth[1]. People tend to inadvertently touch their eyes, nose, and mouth many times per hour[2]. If you think you can substantially reduce the number of times you touch your face by training yourself to avoid doing it, in some low-effort way, go for it. If it takes time to become good at not touching one’s face, it may be worthwhile to start training at it now even if where you live is currently coronavirus-free.
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[1]: The CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) writes:
The best way to prevent illness is to avoid being exposed to this virus. However, as a reminder, CDC always recommends everyday preventive actions to help prevent the spread of respiratory diseases, including:
[...]
Avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth.
[2]: The video by the CDC that Davidmanheim linked to claimed: “Studies have shown that people touch their eyes, nose, and mouth about 25 times every hour without even realizing it!”
I’ve been trying to reduce my face touching for more than 6 months now as part of a project to get less colds and only managed to really get there in the last 2 months.
I also work in a lab with gloves where I have to take care what I touch a lot, which is daily training. Still I have found it frustratingly hard not to do it, so I don’t know if many people can quickly train themselves.
Things that help me:
have paper tissues around and use only them to rub nose/eyes
scratch face with inside of clothes (less obtrusive than it sounds)
wear gloves in public (I guess that works because my hands feel different, like in the lab)
watch out for other people in public doing it wrong (keeps it on my mind)
As a classical guitarist I naturally keep the nails on my RH long, but I read advice to cut them because they are harder to keep clean underneath and carry disease longer, and I’ll probably do that. I’ll probably shave off my beard too for similar reasons (and to stop me touching my beard+face as much.
I shaved my beard. I’ve only had it for about 6 months, and I played with it constantly and unconsciously. Since shaving it off, I bet I’m touching my face 10% as often at most, and only fleetingly.
I discovered a way to practice this recently, I was drawing with vine charcoal, which is dark and very dusty, and I got dark dust all over my hands. Then I touched my face inadvertantly and I could see in the mirror where I had touched.
Later I tried to wash it off and was able to wash it off only when I really focused on how I moved my hands in order to scrub any area. The entire thing felt like good practice with hand higene. So to practice this, improvise a colored dust—charcoal, ash etc, and practice washing hands and not touching face.
It is recommended to avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth[1]. People tend to inadvertently touch their eyes, nose, and mouth many times per hour[2]. If you think you can substantially reduce the number of times you touch your face by training yourself to avoid doing it, in some low-effort way, go for it. If it takes time to become good at not touching one’s face, it may be worthwhile to start training at it now even if where you live is currently coronavirus-free.
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[1]: The CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) writes:
[2]: The video by the CDC that Davidmanheim linked to claimed: “Studies have shown that people touch their eyes, nose, and mouth about 25 times every hour without even realizing it!”
I haven’t tried it, but there’s a funny idea to stop touching your face by taping your elbows.
I’ve been trying to reduce my face touching for more than 6 months now as part of a project to get less colds and only managed to really get there in the last 2 months. I also work in a lab with gloves where I have to take care what I touch a lot, which is daily training. Still I have found it frustratingly hard not to do it, so I don’t know if many people can quickly train themselves.
Things that help me:
have paper tissues around and use only them to rub nose/eyes
scratch face with inside of clothes (less obtrusive than it sounds)
wear gloves in public (I guess that works because my hands feel different, like in the lab)
watch out for other people in public doing it wrong (keeps it on my mind)
I’ve managed to not bite my nails for the past ~3 weeks (longest stretch of my adult life!) thanks to that special kind of transparent nail polish that make your nails taste bad :-P
As a classical guitarist I naturally keep the nails on my RH long, but I read advice to cut them because they are harder to keep clean underneath and carry disease longer, and I’ll probably do that. I’ll probably shave off my beard too for similar reasons (and to stop me touching my beard+face as much.
I shaved my beard. I’ve only had it for about 6 months, and I played with it constantly and unconsciously. Since shaving it off, I bet I’m touching my face 10% as often at most, and only fleetingly.
Ah, I guess I should do this too. Thx.
I discovered a way to practice this recently, I was drawing with vine charcoal, which is dark and very dusty, and I got dark dust all over my hands. Then I touched my face inadvertantly and I could see in the mirror where I had touched.
Later I tried to wash it off and was able to wash it off only when I really focused on how I moved my hands in order to scrub any area. The entire thing felt like good practice with hand higene. So to practice this, improvise a colored dust—charcoal, ash etc, and practice washing hands and not touching face.
Social engineering—ask your friends and family to tell you if touch your face. Do the same for others.
One piece of advice is to keep your hands below shoulder level when you are in public spaces to avoid the temptation to touch your face.