How often do you wash your towel? Some people wash once a week, while some, once a year. The towel is a fertile breeding ground for millions of microbes, especially those found on human skin and on the gut. No wonder the towel is one of the objects that facilitate fecal-oral contamination (literally connecting the two ends of the gut). Worse still, most people keep towels in the bathroom (near the toilet). Every flush of the toilet sends mist with millions of microbes, ranging from H.pylori, salmonella and other deadly bacteria and viruses. When you wash your hands ready for a meal, and dry them with your body towel, there's high chance you are directly ingesting your fecal matter, or, if in a shared lavatory, someone else's faeces. Unless cleaned well, viruses such as human papillomavirus (causes warts, anal cancer and cervical cancer) can be transmitted when towels are shared with infected individuals. So, what to do? 1. Launder towels once a week. 2. Use hot water and det...
Long-term, immediate, and habitual methods for keeping your memories fresh and clear. Whether you want to be a Jeopardy! champion or just need to remember where you parked your car, here are 11 things you can do right now to turn your mind from a sieve into a steel trap. 1. Concentrate for 8 Seconds. These days we’re all about things being faster. That’s why this advice is invaluable: When you really need to remember something, concentrate on it for at least 8 seconds. That can seem like a long time when you're running around trying to get a million things done, but it is worth it. Studies have shown that 8 seconds is the minimum amount of time it takes for a piece of information to go from your short-term memory to your long-term memory. 2. Don’t Walk Through a Doorway. We’ve all walked into a room and suddenly realized we can’t remember why we needed to be there in the first place. Don’t worry, you’re not getting more forgetful—chances are it was the act of walking through a door...