You already know that touching and picking at your skin is a cardinal sin – but that does not stop you from resting your cheeks and chin in your hands, swipe the hair out of your face, rub your eyes or brush your cheeks while talking on the phone, does it? Between typing on your phone/laptop, putting on your shoes and sandals, turning doorknobs and handling money (you don’t know where those notes have been), your hands become a storehouse of germs. We tell you why you need to stop touching your face stat, and a few ways to help you stop this involuntary behavior.
1. Breakouts
Thanks to all those germs they come in contact with all day and in between washes, your hands and fingertips easily spread sweat, bacteria, and allergens on your face, as well as increase the production of oil. All this obviously triggers breakouts and pus-filled zits. Basically, don’t let those germs come in contact with your face.
2. Picking Leads To Marks
When you look in the mirror or touch your face and come in contact with flaws and blemishes, you can’t help but touch and pick at them. It’s like an irrepressible desire that will only lead to scars and marks. Plus, all that touching will only cause more breakouts as you will be spreading bacteria with your fingertips.
3. Touching Can Spread Herpes
Herpes simplex is easy to catch and easy to spread, which means being too touchy-touchy plays a huge role in catching it. If you have a breakout around one part of your body (it is a localised disease) – you can spread it to others. Gross.
4. You Can Catch The Flu
It’s not just about your appearance, but also your health. By touching your eyes, nose and lips you could be spreading germs and infections that could transfer viruses. Think about it the next time you’re down with a cold or fever.
5. Rubbing Your Eyes Is Harmful
You probably think it’s harmless and do it without even realizing, but rubbing your eyes can lead to a number of problems. It can cause infections thanks to spreading germs, it can break the capillaries in the eyelids causing thread-like veins to appear or break the capillaries in the under eye area, which will cause more prominent dark circles. We bet you never thought your fingers could do so much damage!
How Do You Stop?!
It’s a difficult habit to break, since most of the time we do it without even realizing it. Try these tactics to cut down being too touchy-feely with your face.
Sit On Your Hands
Simple behavioral changes like tucking your hands below you while you watch TV or while sitting in a meeting will definitely help prevent you from chewing on your cuticles, rubbing your eyes or touching your temples. It’s all about being more aware of what you do with your hands.
Think Gross Things
For a willpower boost, a simple exercise to make sure you keep your fingers off your face is to gross yourself out. Think about all the things you touch in a day, dirty doorknobs that a hundred hands have touched or notes of money (they’ve been in sweaty blouses and back pockets) and then think about rubbing all of that on your face. That should be enough to stop you.
Use Your Elbows
After washing your hands with an antibacterial soap (make sure to wash the back of your hands and under your nails), use your elbow to turn off the tap. It may sound weird, but you just turned it on with dirty hands, the whole point of washing is wasted if you come in contact with those same germs again.
Clean Your Gadgets
Your constantly spreading germs from your fingers to your laptop keys or phone screens and back again. Make it a point to wipe your keyboard and touchscreens with a tissue, if nothing else and try and keep your hands off your face while you work in front of your screens all day. It’s also a good idea to make use of the speakerphone option on your phone, instead of rubbing the screen on your cheek.
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