Hygiene vs OCD

One of the common themes we hear from psychologists is how maintaining proper hygiene is similar or OCD. Are we clean or are we disturbed? Maybe both? Read more here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

The toilet paper panic

During the COVID-19 crisis, we could not help noticing strange effects. The toilet paper shortage and incredibly detailed infomercial about washing hands. While washing hands is important to stop certain infections, there is no sane reason for buying stocks of toilet paper.

And then again, how serious are we about washing hands? Some wash hands too thoroughly to remove shame, like poor lady Macbeth. Others avoid washing lucky shirts so the luck does not disappear. It makes sense to wear masks and gloves during pandemics, but if we already carry gloves do we have to clean hands as thoroughly? Do we have to do it if we do not leave our homes?

Men and women

We assume that women are more prone to hygiene than men. A recent study measured the frequency with which people wash hands in the toilet.

Men and women washed their hands at the same rate if both had just used the commode. However, after using urinals, men washed their hands significantly less than men who had used the commode.

This means that there may be fewer basic gender differences than we suspect, simply women have more situations that cause them to clean themselves.

If our ancestors even wanted the same level of hygiene as we used, they did not have the resources required…

Wisdom of the East

There are some cultural conventions of what proper hygiene is. In Japan, cleanness is a part of the Shinto religion. Jews have the rules of what is kosher and what is not. In Singapour, some crimes against hygiene are also crimes against the state. Different cultures value various aspects of hygiene which often appear arbitrary.

Many taboos have a biological justification. For example, cannibalism may result in pandemics like mad cow disease. Other ideas are crazy, like early Christians infested with parasites to show humility.

Westerners like us often misinterpret eastern philosophies to justify our peculiarities.

Personal inclinations

People with OCD tend to spend too much time on strange rituals loosely correlated with cleanness. Those with ADHD often forget to wash hands simply because of the focus shifts. Neither should be blamed personally, yet we need to deal with the results.

My mother has a high degree of paranoia and as a kid I disinfected too many things. This did not provide healthy bacterias access to my body and I was prone to disease.  When we relocated to a different country, we could not keep up that level of hygiene and I actually got healthy.

Crisis influence

Quite often crisis causes people to adopt rituals or to lose focus. This makes OCD and ADHD worse, adding some degree of paranoia. There are several typical responses:

• Refusing to accept the crisis or the authority, which may endanger others
• Very strict collaboration with authority to the level of cruelty.
• Crazy level of hygiene and unreasonable protection, which may result in a shortage of protection to the crews that actually need it.
• OCD level of ritual cleaning that may result in health problems, for example, skin issues.
• Very reasonable and healthy behavior with occasional panic outbreaks which are hard to explain.

For example, stressed people may need to but and pile products or mingle with something in their hands, and they may use hygienic products for it.

Infectious disgust

Social influences are infectious. Disgust expressed by some of our friends will affect us. We might change and exhibit similar levels of disgust. Thus OCD spreads. Lack of hygiene is also infectious. During the early stages of COVID-19 staycation, I went out with N95 mask, but nobody else used masks. So I felt more comfortable to put the mask into my pocket.

High stress, horror exposure, paranoia, high levels of OCD in the culture, many chances to use the hygienic products are just some of the reasons for OCD spread during a crisis.

What is actually needed

The actually reasonable behavior that can reduce dangers to yourself and others is easy to find via short online research. My suggestion is similar to the salesmen wisdom: dress up one level above your target audience. We should use the level of hygiene which is one level above the level recommended by the authorities. For example, if the authorities recommend washing hands for 2 minutes we may wear gloves, and if we are asked to wear simple masks we may wear more advanced masks with a filter.

I suggest dealing with excess OCD and ADHD using humor and empathy. It is often easy to place ourselves in the perspective of the people we communicate with and show kindness. We can try to calm others by our own example. Maybe we should loosen our criteria of what is normal. The last thing we should do is diagnose and treat people unless we are qualified professionals.

Mindfulness may also work in some cases. Try and see for yourself.