How Many Times A Day Do You Wash Your Hands?

I'm with you. 20 times/day does not seem excessive to me either. I am always washing my hands. In fact, we were zipping through the airport the other day and stopped at every Purell dispenser we could find. There are too many germs out there and I'd rather be safe than sorry.

How many times a day do I wash my hands? Not nearly as many as my husband would like.

I wash my hands quite often as well though I have never counted but 20 times is quite normal I feel. But to us the way we wash hands is quite quick and easy. Someone with OCD however, might wash their hands almost like they are prepping for surgery. So I believe that the number of times is not really significant but how much or the intensity of the hand washing.

NatureCat -- Purell is great stuff :) I have some at my desk at work and sometimes use that instead of walking all the way over to the kitchen area to wash my hands.

Christina -- Lol. And my boyfriend doesn't wash his hands nearly as often as I would like.

Majimo -- Interesting. I never thought about that aspect of it. I bet you're right. I wash my hands several times, but certainly don't scrub and scrub as though I'm prepping for surgery.

Sounds pretty normal to me! =) I tend to get particularly obsessive when I'm preparing food in the kitchen!

Yeah 20 sounds about right. That's weird that they would emphasized that number, as though that were obsessive. Now if you washed your hands 200 times....

=I was watching a show the other night that mentioned a man with obsessive compulsive disorder washed is hands over twenty times a day.=

It depends in what work you do every day. washing hands multiple times depends on the work you are doing, and many times we feel hands are dirty and want to wash them all that is normal.

=I know over the last few years I have become increasingly germaphobic,=

Now if you wash hands and the thought comes to your mind that it is still dirty and if you eat anything with it you will get infected etc which creates panic
or many times when we eat our hands may / maynot have been washed but while doing so if a anxious thought comes to your mind that you would get infected with germs and ruin your health and washing hands is neccessary then it would be germaphobic,

This fear would have come from experiance in the past when you were ill, I had treated many patient like that with symptoms like

-washing hands multiple times a day like even while watching tv they would think hands are dirty and will go wash it.
- after reading the newspaper would again wash their hands thinking that the ink would case harm. (here normally in our daily lives we would read anything it would be routine but what makes it worse is the anxiety , thought , thinking ahead of time that it may harm himself and that creates a panic by which he goes to wash his hands so he knows that they are clean without any infection) but normal would be washing the hands before eating anything by hand not well before what ever you touch even if the meal was 3 hrs ahead. (unless your hands are very dirty and you wanted it clean )
-many would wash their hands and leave the tap open and would not close it thinking that he would get fear of being infected again and someone else would have to close it.
- many patients would wash over 200 times a day just by the thought they are dirty and want to clean it by washing.
-many would eat with a hand not washed and then after eating a anxious thought would come like now the food has gone in will i get infected with it? will i fall sick? etc. this again creates Panic.
like that there are many symptoms,

I had treated many of them with alternative medicine Homoeopathy.
A few guideline are

1) every thing is fine (even washing multiple times a day) unless you have a thought that by doing this or by touching that you will fall sick / get infected etc. which creates a panic ( I am sure people who have these symptoms and reading this know what i am saying as its a simple thought which creates a anxiety / panic and they only know how they feel about this state multiple times a day )

2) In case you eat something without washing your hands and you get the thought which creates panic then start counting reverse from 500, 499, 498 for about 1 -2 mts you will be happy to notice that the thought has vanished and even if you think after 5-10 mts it would not create any diffrence.

More tips later,
Normal would be
•Every time I eat (breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks)
•Every time I go to the bathroom (4-5 times a day?)
•When they get dirty (duh, usually a time, mayb two, a day)
•When I get home from a shopping trip (like the grocery store or target)
•When people at work are sick I wash my hands when I get home

but for example if you read a magazine or news paper and you think well ahead of time and wash your hands, is a disorder, or if you go to a shopping trip and you plan to eat after 2 hrs but you touch many items like a soap, or a dirty bag etc and you want to wash your hands thinking about the meal 2 hrs ahead and would get infected is again not normal.

so in short any thought that makes you think and makes you panic multiple times a day would be a disorder which makes you wash your hands so you are not infected multiple times a day.
Germaphobe
Dr Gopal I Patel
Consultant Homeopath
India