'12,167 Hours Of Our Lives' Saved: US Doctor Shares Why He Stopped Using Soap For Bath Years Ago, Lists Health Benefits

If you endorse a daily bath or shower with soaps and shampoo, you will likely squirm when you hear this. This US doctor decided to buck the trend and start his brave new 'hygiene routine'.

Dr. James Hamblin has chronicled his experiment in a book, and analysed the history and worth of what we term cleanliness and hygiene.

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Dr. James Hamblin, a lecturer at the Yale School of Public Health, says there is “a large health halo” around personal care products. He confesses that he has not had what one normally considers an elaborate bath with soaps and shampoos, and argues that these chemical-laden toiletries are not only a complete waste of money, but they may also be hurting our health.

Hamblin says we think of them as hygiene-promoting because many make medical-sounding claims, but they amount only to clever marketing. “How much of it is necessary for health? And how much of this is just a personal preference? And am I wasting time and money? Would I be better off if I did less?” Hamblin asks during a conversation with CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta on his podcast Chasing Life.

In his 2020 book titled "Clean: The New Science of Skin and the Beauty of Doing Less", Hamblin has chronicled the experiment and also analysed the history and worth of what we term as cleanliness and hygiene.

Those were all questions Hamblin, a preventive medicine and public health doctor and then a writer for The Atlantic, wanted to explore. So he stopped showering — in the traditional sense of the word — as an experient around eight years ago. 

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That's '12,167 Hours Of Our Lives' Saved 

Dr. James Hamblin's logic was that we ought not to disturb the microbiome on our skin. Upsetting it again and again can prove detrimental. Washing hands with soap is enough, and there is no need for the elaborate effort to remove all the oil from your skin.

"... there is a harmony between the oils and the chemicals that your skin secretes naturally, and the skin microbiome that lives on that skin and you temporarily disrupt the microbiome when you take a hot shower and you use a detergent... It's not necessarily bad, but it changes the dynamic... It's a sort of clear cutting of a forest," he tells Dr Sanjay Gupta. Hamblin says this use of detergents can cause an inflammatory cascade if one is prone to acne or eczema.

“I carefully wrote (in the 2020 book) that five years ago I stopped — and I did,” he explains, noting that those years were dedicated to trial and error. “In that time …. I tried all kinds of different products. This was a course of experimentation of all different sorts of regimens. So, I didn’t spend five entire years never showering — no. But people really wanted to hear that,” he tells Dr Sanjay Gupta of CNN.

But, he adds, “I certainly was very minimalist for a very long time.”

Apart from the expenditure on the hygiene products, and the harm he sees they might be causing to the skin microbiome, Dr James Hamblin shares another thing he saved: "...most of us will spend about 12,167 hours of our lives just washing our bodies. That's about two years of washing if you spend about 20 minutes per day doing it. So if you could cut down on even part of that daily routine, why not try?"

He emphasises that many hygiene and beauty products are marketed as essential for health, but in reality, there are multiple correct ways to maintain cleanliness, and very few products are truly necessary for disease prevention. He encourages people to continue using products they enjoy but also to feel free to let go of routines driven by marketing rather than genuine need.

Dr James Hamblin is not asking all to stop using soap altogether or to stop showering completely. He explains that the outdated "hygiene hypothesis" has been replaced by the "biodiversity hypothesis", which suggests that reduced microbial exposure due to modern, sterile lifestyles may weaken immune system development. 

Dr Hamblin advocates for a balanced approach to hygiene — being deliberate about necessary practices like handwashing after using the bathroom while also ensuring sufficient exposure to diverse environments to support overall health.

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So, How Often Should You Bathe?

Weather and terrain can govern the toss-up between whether to bathe or not everyday. In tropical countries, hot weather and humidity make bathing therapeutic and give relief from the sweat and grime. Not bathing everyday is almost not an option in countries lke India where the heat, humidity, dust, and sweat can play havoc with body odour and skin health. 

However, in colder countries, the chill may prevent people from bathing daily, especially if hot water is not available.

According to Harvard professor Dr Robert H Shmerling, MD and Senior Faculty Editor, Harvard Health Publishing, there is no ideal frequency for bathing — be it daily or less often, but showering several times per week is plenty for most people (unless you are grimy, sweaty, or have other reasons to shower more often). 

Dr Shmerling says that short showers (lasting three or four minutes) with a focus on the armpits and groin may suffice. He ends the case for NOT bathing daily with, “If you’re like me, it may be hard to imagine skipping the daily shower. But if you’re doing it for your health, it may be a habit worth breaking.”

The writer is a senior independent journalist.