Washing your hands or using hand sanitizer is a given if you want to avoid germs—but it’s especially important after touching these microbe magnets.
Hand washing works
Washing your hands is essential to good hygiene, stopping germs in their tracks. The CDC recommends using soap and clean water or hand sanitizer to wash your hands, both are effective ways of keeping germs at bay. It’s impossible to keep your hands 100 per cent germ-free all the time, but it’s absolutely essential after touching the following things.
Money
If you don’t already wash your hands or use hand sanitizer after touching money, this will convince you to start. Research has shown some cash and coins even contain pathogens like E. coli and salmonella. It doesn’t help that money circulates for a while, either.
Handrails, handles, or doorknobs
One of the critical times to remember to wash is after riding public transportation, where multiple people are continuously touching the same surfaces. This includes everything from handrails on an escalator to poles on the subway to bathroom door handles. Remember to keep hand sanitizer in your purse.
Restaurant menus
Restaurants can be germ-ridden places—but the menu is the worst carrier. Researchers from the University of Arizona found that menus had a whopping 185,000 bacterial organisms. It makes sense, as so many people handle restaurant menus. You can’t avoid touching it, but do wash your hands or hand sanitizer afterward.
Pens that aren’t yours
Although many people use their phone or computer to take notes and write lists, sometimes you just need to borrow a pen. That’s fine, but wash your hands or hand sanitizer after using it. The average office pen has 10 times the germs of the average office toilet seat, at about 200 bacteria per square inch, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Any animals
Hand washing or hand sanitizer after touching animals or interacting with pets, whether yours or someone else’s, is absolutely essential.
Touchscreens
Now that technology replaces some paper goods, it’s key to wash your hands or hand sanitizer after touching any screens. One of the worst offenders are kiosk machines in airports or public transportation locations.
Anything in a doctor’s office
Thanks to a parade of patients coming through all day, most things in a doctor’s office harbor germs or bacteria—especially the sign-in pen. So, take a few minutes after your visit to stop by the washroom and thoroughly wash or use hand sanitizer.
Anything in an airport
Normally, there are approximately 2.6 million airline passengers travelling every day, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. More people means more germs, and more shared public surfaces where you’ll encounter them. Avoid touching doorknobs, water fountains, kiosk screens, and especially those plastic tubs and trays in the airport security line. If touch, remember to use hand sanitizer to clean your hand.
