Cleaning your hands can help you focus on new ideas: study

Cleaning your hands can help your brain shake off old ideas and focus on new tasks or goals, according to scientists who have found that an antiseptic handwipe can help 'reset' your mind.

Researchers at the University of Toronto in Canada found that the physicality of cleaning one's hands acts to shift goal pursuit, making prior goals less important and subsequent goals more important.

"Handwipes are not just for germs anymore. Their uses may extend to more flexible thinking and reorienting one's priorities," researchers said.

The four experiments each began by bringing participants' attention to particular goals through word games or a short survey, a process called "priming."

The participants were then asked to either merely evaluate or actually use a handwipe.

Those who were asked to use the wipe became less likely to think of the previously primed goal, less likely to make behavioural choices consistent with it, and less likely to find it important.

Furthermore, their focus was more easily reoriented towards a subsequently primed goal.

"For people who were primed with a health goal, for example, using the handwipe reduced their subsequent tendency to behave in a healthy manner - they were more likely to choose a chocolate bar over a granola bar," said Ping Dong, a PhD student at University of Toronto.

Previous work has already shown that physical cleansing reduces the impact of previous psychological experiences, such as guilt arising from immoral behaviour.

The current research unpacks the underlying mental process: cleansing embodies a psychological procedure of separation.

Wiping away dirt serves as a physical proxy for mentally separating ideas that linger from previous experience, hence preparing a 'clean slate' for focusing on new ones.

The research examined cleansing's short-term rather than long-term impact on goal pursuit, said Dong.

While it may be premature to suggest that people intent on achieving goals should significantly alter their personal hygiene routines, the findings do suggest that when it comes to finding practical tricks for redirecting one's thinking away from old fruitless pursuits towards new and better ones, an antiseptic wipe may come in handy.

The study was published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.