13 facts from an ex-doctor to make your life very mildly better

I was previously a doctor and am generally interested in biology. Here are some things about everyday life which seem obvious to me because of that background — maybe some of them won't be obvious to you.

  1. Difficulty swallowing pills is sometimes about buoyancy. Most pills sink; most capsules float. If it floats, tilt your head forward until you feel it touch the back of your throat, then swallow. If it sinks, same but backwards. (A study on the two techniques.)
  2. Put deodorant on when you're as dry as practically possible. The sweat itself doesn't smell — the glands in your armpit (and ~only there) put out fatty compounds, and bacteria metabolising those produce the smell. Most deodorant works by drying out sweat; put it on straight out of the shower and you use up all its drying power.
  3. Bed rest is overrated — for back pain it's actively bad. Work might suck, and pushing through when you don't feel like it can burn through your motivation fast — worth avoiding for that reason. For back pain in particular, resting is actively damaging (ordinary activity beats bed rest). Note that self-compassion is good for other reasons though!
  4. Using SAD lamps in the evening will probably shift your sleep cycle later. Late-day use likely makes you tired later and wake later; early-day use does the opposite. Check you're using yours in a way you actually endorse.
  5. After brushing your teeth, don't rinse — and hold off eating and drinking for a while. Your teeth are constantly losing or rebuilding minerals. Toothpaste leaves fluoride in your mouth, so the mineral being rebuilt is the stronger fluorapatite rather than the weaker hydroxyapatite. (The NHS says spit, don't rinse.) Relatedly: brushing before breakfast beats brushing after — acid from food softens enamel, and brushing right away scrubs it off. If you'd rather brush after, wait 30–60 minutes.
  6. Cold water for burns is good; ice is not. Cool (not ice-cold) running water for 10–20 minutes. Ice might numb the area, but it causes additional damage — your priority is reducing damage, not the pain. Then cover it with a layer of cling film — laid on, not wrapped around. (The ice thing is an update from older advice. The NHS agrees on both counts.)
  7. Keep wounds moist — a big dry scab is not the goal. Wounds heal faster and scar less when kept moist under a clean dressing. "Letting the air get to it" is a named myth — moist wound healing has been the standard since the 1960s.
  8. Sugar alcohols might upset your tummy. Xylitol, sorbitol and friends — often in gum. (In general, artificial sweeteners aren't bad for you.)
  9. To stop a nosebleed, pinch the soft part, not the hard upper part. The NHS agrees.
  10. Chewing gum is good for your teeth. Most gum uses a sugar alcohol rather than sugar, and chewing stimulates saliva, which protects teeth (the American Dental Association agrees).
  11. Taking paracetamol lots is kind of fine (within the packet dose). Within the dose on the packet it's very well tolerated — a doctor friend of mine has a policy that no one gets empathy until they've taken paracetamol. Ibuprofen, on the other hand, is probably more of a sometimes food — see this recent Asterisk piece.
  12. Grief is intermittent, and that's a diagnostic feature rather than a malfunction. Something terrible happens and it doesn't hit you straight away — that doesn't mean you didn't care. For most grief you'll be hit hard for a while, then feel fine for a chunk of time (almost odd about how fine you feel), and then sometimes still be hit by it months later. The intermittency is part of what separates grief from, say, depression. So if you're feeling weird about crying about something months on — or weird about being functional for multiple hours the day after something terrible happened — this is the normal shape of it. (NHS on grief.)
  13. Eye drops go in the little pocket below your eye. Some people have a hard time putting in eye drops, watching the scary little drop gather and jiggle around as it threatens to come smashing down upon your cornea. To those people, I suggest switching to imagining that you're trying to drop the eye drop into the little pocket below your eye — just tilt your head back, open up the pocket, and drop it in.