The ideal is to give up on timewasting/unimportant activities(Quadrants 3&4 on Eisenhower Matrix) and try/begin important activities(Q1&2).
It is incredibly challenging, to accept uncertainty & to do what you are SURE is important & will result in a positive outcome.
If I run for 30 minutes every day then I KNOW that it is beneficial to my health. I am certain. My OCD will ruin it by suggesting that I could breathe polluted air, et cetera. By that suggestion alone, I will not run.
It's a strange dysfunction of your brains executive/decision ability. I value what I am not certain of MORE than what I am certain of.
It is my goal to reverse that logic & when your brain is working against you, it feels as if you're swimming against a current.
The inflammation thing is probably true. Here's a random study. Don't do anything that keeps you in a constant state of injury!
It probably makes sense to move to less polluted areas and such, but I doubt excessive hand washing and those smaller habits would do much. I think we'd see a clear effect of successful people being compulsive handwashers? I mean, there are impurities in other things we can't control as well (air, water, food), so minimizing impurity from the hand only makes a very small difference. Still, brilliant people live in polluted places like LA (Terence Tao comes to mind!), various places in China, etc. so it doesn't seem to determine your outcome -- in fact, research shows the impact is small (but it does exist). Success is determined by the big factors and knowledge/wisdom-based choices, not being a few percent faster or more effective at solving puzzles -- unless you're in a particularly competitive job (maths competitions, professional athlete, professional chess player, etc.). Most mathematicians choose to explore different directions, different fields instead of competing head to head to solve single problems[1]. Our bodies and brains are also remarkably robust to small loads of impurities... in fact, one of the techniques of AI is to get rid of a few neurons here and there (DIY not advised). Hope this alleviates some concerns :)
[1] I got this from Maryam Mirzakhani interviews: https://news.stanford.edu/2017/07/15/maryam-mirzakhani-stanf...
OCD is "what if?"-centric. I do try to consider that intelligent people live, typically, in polluted areas(for work or school), but is their remarkable ability in spite of that? What if they'd be better if they went off to rural Maine or wherever and worked remotely?
I also try to consider that "speed" is probably not the great determinant of who succeeds in life, but that people who are virtuous, or perhaps - have a personality conducive to being considerate & contemplative, mature, humble, confident, et cetera - is probably closer to the answer, and whether you need every last IQ point to be such person, I'm unsure. What if that is necessary?
I wish that I could just say "this isn't worth the effort. I'm not absorbing anything clinically significant. We are okay. Wash your hands like a normal person(follow CDC 6-step recommendation) and move on." and believe it & follow through.
I very much appreciate your response.
It feels as if they are "information hazards" as I act exactly as the people do in your aneurysm example; I wash my hands for 10+ minutes when the risk is probably nominal, and so on. That 0.5% risk from your example absolutely "plays on my mind".
>"you'll never win a Nobel prize if you don't decontaminate your hands because the pollutant will absorb through your skin, into your blood, and then into your brain, and probably lower your IQ!"
Your imagination runs wild in such desperation.