Handshakes

Don’t shake hands if you want to stay healthy

How many times do we mention the importance of hand washing in this book? Probably a hundred times. All the studies and experts tell us that hand washing is one of the best ways to avoid getting sick. We pick up all kinds of germs on our hands—whether from shaking hands with someone who has been coughing and sneezing their infectious snot all over their palms or by touching contaminated door handles, phones, or faucets. If it is so very important to keep our hands clean, it makes sense that the best course of action might be to avoid any hand-shaking altogether. When the H1N1 influenza, or swine flu, was rapidly spreading around the world, the United States vice president suggested that people should avoid hand-shaking. Many people were left wondering whether they needed to risk offending others by refusing to shake hands.

Hand-shaking is an important tradition in many cultures. In the United States, hand-shaking is particularly important for introductions, making agreements, and bidding farewell. Politicians use hand-shaking to win confidence, approval, and votes. In Kenya, where Rachel works for half of the year, hand-shaking is an expected greeting whenever you meet someone. In fact, a person is expected to shake hands with everyone in the room they enter. Even very young children in Kenya shake hands when they greet adults. Giving up hand-shaking seems like a difficult proposition. Without a handshake, we may feel isolated, missing human contact, or slighted. It may be difficult to know whether you have really reached an agreement if you cannot shake on it. And if you refuse an offered hand, people might think you rude or insulting. But we know that you really do not want to get sick either.

It is absolutely true that you could catch a cold or the flu by shaking someone’s hand. Cold sufferers often get mucus or snot on their hands when they cough and sneeze. If you shake their hand and then touch your own mouth or nose, you could get sick too. Even though this is a real risk, there is a simple way that you can break this cycle. Wash your hands! If you wash your hands before you touch your own mouth or nose, you can easily protect yourself from those germs. An alcohol-based hand sanitizer works very well to clean off your hands if you cannot get to a sink and soap easily. In fact, the alcohol hand rubs work better than soap and water in many studies of hand-washing. You can also train yourself to avoid touching your eyes, nose, or mouth with your hands if you have not had a chance to wash your hands. Keep your hands away from your face unless you know they are clean.

It is also important to remember that many other infections are not passed through hand-shaking. As we talked about in some of the previous chapters, a lot of serious infections are actually not very contagious. You can be very close to most sick people without getting sick yourself, and hand-shaking will not pass most serious infections. Moreover, remember the odds; not everyone is sick! In fact, the majority of the people you meet every day are healthy. While you may meet more infected people during the cold and flu seasons, and while it is not a bad idea to wash your hands regularly (or use hand sanitizer) no matter whose hands you are shaking, most people’s hands are not going to make you sick.

Doctors do a lot of hand-shaking, and they do a lot of hand-shaking with very sick people. In Rachel’s work, she shakes hands with HIV-infected patients all the time. HIV is not passed through hand-shaking, nor are most other serious diseases. As pediatricians, we see countless children with coughs and colds. While these common infections can be passed through hand-shaking, even doctors in constant contact with sick people can avoid getting sick most of the time by washing their hands regularly and not touching their mouths or noses very often. The risks of hand-shaking are very small in contrast to the benefits of hand-shaking for greeting each other, for making emotional and business connections, and for affirming our human connections.