alt Hacker NewsWhy getting your hands dirty is good for you
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Curious what people's thoughts here are on grounding as another benefit. Article talks about benefits of bacteria on the skin, but I'd say the other and maybe bigger benefit is discharge of electrical energy in our bodies to the ground. Which, can sounds weird depending. Some papers on the subject[0] talking about similar results as this article, almost implying that it's not the microbes, but grounding making the difference.
I also got a $30 "grounding mat" that you plug into the ground part of electrical socket, and I dunno, it feels amazing to have skin touching it. I put it in bed and literally slept the best I have in years in the last two night, by far. Comments online generally are snake oil, but many others are first person accounts saying that for whatever reason, the grounding mat worked for them. (I have theories that the people who it does nothing for are those who already have an outlet. Like a dog where you're in nature and on walks, and also a dog can do the discharge for you). Other comments online are stories of how when the mat is plugged to ground, their cats love sitting on it, but if unplugged, the mats are ignored. That seems like some study that would be interesting at animal shelter, seeing if animals can tell and prefer.
But anyway, wondering what others opinions on this topic are.
This is just how anti-fragility works. Getting your hands 'dirty' is what's known as introducing turbulence and chaos in order to achieve true stability/robustness.
Conversely, trying to keep your hands too clean might create more severe bacteria problems--which is known as: system blow-up.
A good layperson-friendly example of such blow-ups (that are inevitable, due to avoidance of small 'failures') was masterfully depicted in Matthew Lewis's 'The Monk'-- in which he shows how a pious, religious abbot whose piety was not earned (but merely guarded), descends into the worst possible outcomes because his piety and morality was not antifragile (and hence blew up). A fascinating read.
> Those using the microbially-diverse soil saw an increase in the diversity of bacteria on their skin, and on the number of anti-inflammatory cytokines in their blood – while the other group didn't.
That's really remarkable.
Not just your hands.
Walking barefoot, over all manner of surfaces, feels good, increases your connection to your surroundings, and slows you down.
I've done it lots, both in the countryside and in the city. You have to watch out for spiky plants and fox shit in the country, and in the city you soon learn which surface textures require more care :-)
"Where would I find enough leather to cover the entire surface of the earth? But with leather soles beneath my feet, it's as if the whole world has been covered." - Shantideva, 8th century Buddhist monk
I heard the most ridiculous thing the other day:
That GenZ and Gen Alpha have started doing this thing they call “private podcasting”. Where they invite a friend over and discuss topics like one of those podcasts where dudes just talk about stuff…but they don’t record it or post it anywhere.
I was stunned. Is this generation really so socially starved by the attention parasites that human beings are starting to reinvent “hanging out” or “just having a conversation”.
It’s so ridiculous I just refuse to believe this is how they actually think and this has to be some kind of rage bait. I pray that it’s rage bait because if it isn’t we failed our children badly.
All that to say that I get similar vibes from the “grtting your hands dirty is actually good for you” thing. It just screams that entire generations of people have been stunted by helicopter parenting that this just seems like novel information. It seems we’ve completely abdicated our duty as parents and dumped our responsibility to educate our children onto profit seeking media companies. And that terrifies me.
Not going to lie, I was a bit confused at first (before visiting the link), why would BBC publish an anti-AI post for software developers.
after i switched to washing my hands with antibacterial soap (the orange kind they use in hospitals), i've gone from a bimonthly cold-analog disease to maybe being sick twice a year
The mechanism is somewhat dubious imho - why would dirt selectively have beneficial bacteria that other environments don’t? I could come up with some just-so stories about how more “virulent” (haha) bacteria are the only ones to conquer our more sterile world but it’s just a plausible tale.
I do subscribe to it myself but not out of evidence. It’s just vibes. Built my daughter a little dirt box with grass and edible herbs so when she would muck around at five to six months she could do it in there on the balcony of our San Francisco apartment and she enjoyed destroying the plants so at the worst she got some fun out of it.
I have gotten weird rashes on my hands after working in the garden, so maybe it's not all good all the time.
Dirt is good to prevent you from getting sick easily.
My experience with gardening is that you also get bitten and stung all the time by a range of bugs and plants so you get resistance training, too ;) British false widow spiders have nothing on me at this point...
Ohhhh... that's why Indian poop festivals?!
... Wasn't there papers and articles showing getting in contact with soil was causing Parkinson's?
Feeling some pâro, again:
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.. and we needed an article from BBC to be aware of this? :O
> I take a long walk in my nearest park every day,
> By the end of each day they are covered head to toe in mud.
Author of this article lives in a big major europen city. It is fair to assume that "nearest park" serves as a toilet for entire neighborhood. Soil there is contaminated with parasites, excrements and toxic waste!
Children who play there will develop all sorts of mysterious allergies, skin rash conditions, asthma and so on! There are well documented cases that developed into limb amputations!
You should not assume nearest patch of grass is safe for children! Take them to real nature, where grass is not used as a toilet by city folks!!!
I look forward to seeing a lifehacking hyper-optimizer streamline this to a polished daily workflow...
"I have a bucket of mud, in which I stick my hands for 15 minutes every morning.
Every weekend, I inoculate at a 1:5:5 ratio with biologically active stream dirt (after petri-dishing to check for activity), and a mix of poor-quality soil cover, and some compost; I finish by adding a 10-10-10 balanced fertilizer.
Recently, I've been seeing if there are any additional benefits to smearing all over my arms; I'm conducting a 3 month/3 month comparison experiment, with a washout period in-between...
Don't forget to buy my exclusive eBook!"