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SunSeeker

(51,550 posts)
Thu Mar 5, 2020, 03:53 PM Mar 2020

How to Stop Touching Your Face

Keep tissues handy. When you feel the urge to scratch an itch, rub your nose or adjust your glasses, grab a tissue and use that instead of your fingers.

Using scented soap or lotion could also help, said Zach Sikora, a clinical psychologist at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago. When you bring your hands close to your face, that smell could make you more aware of your actions.

Keeping your hands occupied with a stress ball or other object can reduce instances of touching your face and minimize triggers, doctors said. Of course, don’t forget to regularly clean and sanitize that object. If you don’t have a stress ball to squeeze, mail to sort or laundry to fold, you could lace your hands together in your lap or find another way to actively engage them so you are not bringing them to your face as much.

Dr. Justin Ko, a clinical associate professor of dermatology at Stanford Health, said he tells patients who wear contact lenses to consider wearing glasses instead to discourage them from rubbing their eyes. “Similarly,” he said, “while masks are not very effective for preventing virus transmission, they can be quite helpful for providing a physical barrier against touching the nose or mouth.” He said he worried about the effects of using ritualistic behaviors, like snapping a rubber band on your wrist each time you touch your face. It is more effective, he said, to try to be in the present moment, practicing meditation and mindfulness exercises and focusing on your breathing.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/05/health/stop-touching-your-face-coronavirus.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

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aikoaiko

(34,169 posts)
8. I've also hear that there is the paradoxical effect of people readjusting their masks
Thu Mar 5, 2020, 04:14 PM
Mar 2020

and inadvertently touching their faces under the mask when they do so.

A lot of these masks are uncomfortable to wear especially when its warm and one perspires.
 

LenaW

(51 posts)
2. Oh no!
Thu Mar 5, 2020, 04:02 PM
Mar 2020

So many people have reactions to perfumes ranging from migraines to asthma attacks. I hate seeing advice for people to start wearing more scented products. I'm sure they won't just be using them in their own homes.

Runningdawg

(4,516 posts)
3. A tip from an old retired OR nurse
Thu Mar 5, 2020, 04:02 PM
Mar 2020

Wear a (new each day) rubber band on the wrist of your dominant hand. No snapping required. Before it gets to your face you will remember not to touch. Also, wash your eyeglasses with soap and water and disinfect your phone EVERY day.

Runningdawg

(4,516 posts)
11. 60% water 40% alcohol solution
Thu Mar 5, 2020, 04:55 PM
Mar 2020

Do NOT spray directly on the phone - LIGHTLY wet a paper towel or washcloth and wipe down the phone. Do it again 5 min later.
We bought a UV sanitizer a couple years ago.
Amazon sells several different types of wipes especially made for sanitizing electronics, cameras, glasses, phones, ect.
Or you can purchase a UV sanitizer for 50-75 $
Yes - very good that someone mention computer equipment and household remotes, game controllers, ect.

CaptYossarian

(6,448 posts)
9. Your computer mouse/keyboard and TV remotes too.
Thu Mar 5, 2020, 04:14 PM
Mar 2020

Doorbell, doorknobs, stair railings, refrigerator and stove door handles...GOOD LORD!

Trump wants us to go to work. Who has time for work?

Just get the damn vaccine going!

LAS14

(13,783 posts)
12. It will be very hard for me, with tickly nose and itchy eyes, so...
Thu Mar 5, 2020, 05:00 PM
Mar 2020

... I have adopted the strategy of using hand sanitizer whenever I sit down in public (not so likely to touch face while walking and doing stuff). If I do forget, I wipe the spot with hand sanitizer. I do the Row, Row or Happy Birthday hand wash whenever I enter our house. There's a stool in the front hall that I have to walk around to remind me to do it first thing.

11 Bravo

(23,926 posts)
15. Draw little pictures of Trump on your fingertips.
Thu Mar 5, 2020, 05:42 PM
Mar 2020

That should keep them away from your face.
(But caution, it might also lead to an overwhelming urge to wipe your ass with your bare hands!)

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