STOP WASTING YOUR TIME

No, we’re not talking about procrastinating, eating junk food or wasting time watching reruns on TV – we’re talking about the things you’re doing because you think you should.

Peeling your fruit and veg and washing your jeans often, plus other things you should stop doing right now

❛A recent study found that peeing on a jellyfish sting might just be one of the worst things you could do... urine could venom.❜ irritate the sting and spread the

❛About half of the food’s fibre content is found in the peel and rind.

1 PEEING ON A JELLYFISH STING

You can blame this one on the episode of Friends aptly named ‘The One with the Jellyfish’, in which Monica is stung by a jellyfish while at the beach with Chandler and Joey. Chandler makes a weird suggestion: pee on it. He’d seen a programme on the Discovery Channel about it; apparently the ammonia in urine can dull the pain. Monica, unable to ‘bend that way’, asks Joey to help but he has stage fright, so Chandler has to do it. After the incident, they can barely look at each other.

If you’re ever in this situation, take note: there’s no reason to risk your friendships. A recent study found that peeing on a jellyfish sting might just be one of the worst things you could do. Traditional ‘remedies’ such as seawater, ice and urine could irritate the sting and spread the venom, depending on the type of jellyfish. This was specifically true in the case of the (scarily named) man o’war’s sting. ‘For me it was certainly surprising, as we’ve been recommending seawater and ice for the past 10 years,’ says Dr Tom Doyle, a biologist at NUI Galway in Ireland.

So what should you do? Run to the nearest fish and chips shop for help. (There should be one near the beach, surely?) ‘We’re absolutely 100% certain that vinegar does the trick,’ says Dr Doyle.

2 PUTTING BREAD IN THE FRIDGE

Popping a fresh loaf into the fridge keeps it from going stale, right? Not so. In fact, according to Harold McGee, author of On Food & Cooking, refrigerated bread (the freshly baked kind, not the commercial kind) goes stale up to six times faster than bread left out on the counter. The reason? Well, it has to do with the retrogradation and recrystallisation of starch, which is a fancy way of describing the way the starches in bread regroup back to their original, crystallised (hardened) state the moment the bread starts to cool after baking. By cooling the bread down even more, you speed up the process.

So how do you extend the shelf life? You could buy a different kind of bread: those with a bit of added fat, such as challah and brioche, stay fresh for longer, whereas a baguette starts getting stale by the end of day one. And don’t buy sliced bread. First prize is obviously eating it while it’s fresh, but if you really want to keep it for longer, place it in a sealed ziplock bag and put it in the freezer. To revive it, pop it into the oven or the toaster – the heat re-gelatinises the starches.

3 PEELING FRUIT AND VEG

Put down the peeler and step away from the pile of potatoes. All you’re doing is stripping your food of nutrients – the skins of many fruits and veggies are packed with antioxidants, vitamins and fibre. Now, we’re not saying you should be eating pineapple skins or biting into an unpeeled orange, but some things are better left intact. ‘I recommend eating skins on apples, pears, cucumbers, carrots, eggplant, nectarines, peaches, plums, potatoes and sweet potatoes,’ says New York nutritionist Carolyn Brown.

Take an apple, for example. By peeling it, you’re diminishing its nutritional value by a third. The peel contains vitamin C, vitamin A, potassium and pectin, a soluble fibre that’s beneficial for your gut health and blood sugar. The same goes for potatoes: the skins are packed with fibre, folate and more calcium and iron than the spud itself. And don’t even think of peeling a cucumber – the soft flesh on the inside is mostly water, whereas the peel contains most of the calcium, magnesium, phosphorous, potassium, vitamin A and vitamin K.

In general, says Carolyn, about half of the food’s fibre content is found in the peel and rind.

SIDE NOTE: Beware of bread that takes forever to get stale – the best loaves die young, as they’re made with nothing more than flour, yeast and water.

4 WASHING YOUR JEANS AFTER EVERY WEAR

How often should you wash your jeans? If you were to listen to Levi’s CEO and president, Chip Bergh, (he would know a thing or two about jeans, right?) the answer is simple: never. The only problem with that is you know… ew. Thankfully, he was exaggerating to make a point when he said that. In a video he made for Fortune, he explains: ‘It was a wake-up call to consumers, that we go into autopilot and after we’re finished wearing something, we just automatically toss it into the laundry.’

There’s also been some talk from denim manufacturers about freezing your jeans overnight instead of washing them, but don’t make space in the freezer just yet. Freezing isn’t an alternative cleaning method; it’s to ‘kill bacteria’, which it doesn’t do – the moment you slip the jeans back on, your body heat will reinvigorate germs. So, no.

Machine-washing denim, says Chip, causes a lot of damage to the material, and is a waste of water. ‘A good pair of denims don’t really need to be washed in the washing machine except very infrequently or rarely.’ So the take-home message here is to keep washing them – but maybe do it by hand, and not as often.

5 GOING TO WORK WHEN YOU ARE SICK

Next time you’ve got the flu, do yourself and your co-workers a favour: stay at home. Why? Well, firstly, you’re bound to make everyone else sick as well. Scientists have discovered that a single sneeze or cough by a flu sufferer distributes enough airborne specks to spread germs around an entire room.

And the outlook is even worse in an open-plan office. ‘If you’re in a workspace where all of your desks are together, and you cough, those small lung droplets that contain flu could conceivably travel to the person sitting next to you, maybe even five or six feet away from you,’ says John Noti, a microbiologist who researches infectious disease transmission for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Secondly, you’re not doing your best work. Sick people tend to spend more time on tasks and are prone to making mistakes and poor decisions. And, believe it or not, ‘presenteeism’ (showing up to work when you’re sick) is actually worse for companies than employees who take sick leave. Research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2004 found that the US lost a total of more than $150 billion each year to presenteeism because it wreaked havoc on productivity. ‘Less time was lost from people staying home than from them showing up but not performing at the top of their game,’ reported the Harvard Business Review.

And lastly, it takes longer to get over an illness if you don’t get enough rest. Stress takes a toll on the immune system, causing a cold that may have lasted a few days to linger for longer.

The take-home? Just take a duvet day, or ask if you can work remotely if your deadlines are looming.

6 USING CITRONELLA CANDLES TO REPEL MOSQUITOES

Unless you love the smell of citronella on a hot summer night, you can leave those ‘mosquito-deterring’ candles off your shopping list. While the oil does technically repel mosquitoes to some degree, judging by ‘the amount and concentration that’s put out via candles, it’s not very effective’, says Joseph Conlon, a technical advisor for the American Mosquito Control Association. ‘As a matter of fact, it’s really not significantly more effective than any other candle would be.’

Most experts agree that lotions and sprays containing DEET are still the most effective at repelling mosquitoes,

A good pair of denims doesn’t really need to be washed in the washing machine, except very rarely.❜

but there’s also a simpler way: just turn on a fan. Mosquitoes struggle to fly in even a moderate breeze. ‘Plus, the breeze tends to dissipate all of the body odours and carbon dioxide that people give off that attract mosquitoes, so the mosquitoes have a much more difficult time trying to find their hosts,’ says Joseph. ‘It’s lowtech, but very effective.’

7 PRESSING THE BUTTON AT A PEDESTRIAN CROSSING

You know that button on the robot at the pedestrian crossing that’s supposed to make the green walking man appear? Here’s a little secret: it probably doesn’t do anything. A 2016 article in The New York Times revealed that most of these buttons in Manhattan did nothing at all – traffic lights are controlled by a computer, and change at regular intervals to let the traffic flow.

The same goes for the door-close button in a lift. Most of those (in the US at least) haven’t worked since the 1990s, when the Americans With Disabilities Act determined that the doors should stay open ‘long enough for anyone who uses crutches, a cane or wheelchair to get on board’. ‘The riding public would not be able to make those doors close any faster,’ says Karen W Penafiel, executive director of National Elevator Industry Inc. (Things may be different in SA though, or are we kidding ourselves?)

And while you’re having your view on the world shattered, here’s another one: if you’re working in a big office building, that air con control panel (that someone is always fiddling with because it’s either too hot or too cold) probably doesn’t do anything either. More than half of respondents in a 2003 survey in the US admitted to installing ‘dummy thermostats’ in office buildings. They make office workers feel better, said one participant. ‘This cut down the number of service calls by more than 75 percent.’

These buttons might be useless in terms of function, but they do serve some purpose, says Ellen Langer, a psychology professor at Harvard University. ‘Perceived control is very important,’ she says. ‘It diminishes stress and promotes well-being.’

Even psychology professor John Kounios admits that despite his ‘grave doubts’ about the functionality of traffic light buttons, he still presses them. ‘After all, I’ve got nothing else to do while waiting. So why not press the button on the off-chance that this one will work?’

‘Perceived control is very important. It diminishes stress and promotes wellbeing.’