Just being at work exposes your body to an onslaught of nasty germs that could cause your next sick day, says Dr. Robert Glatter, an emergency-medicine physician at Lenox Hill Hospital.
Viruses — like influenza and the stomach-cramping norovirus — can live on hard surfaces in your office for hours or days. Some, like those that cause the common cold, can spread within just a couple hours. And harmful bacteria such as E. coli and salmonella can thrive for days at a time.
Surprisingly, the bathrooms — which are scrubbed regularly — aren’t the worst breeding grounds.
“It’s the common areas,” Glatter says. “Office kitchens and break rooms are prime areas where cleaning needs to happen.”
Those are dumping grounds for everyone’s germs, as opposed to your cubicle, where it’s more likely that just your own germs run amok, adds Dr. Fred Pelzman, associate professor of clinical medicine at Weill Cornell. “I can use my phone and never get sick from it,” he says.
Here’s a breakdown of where your workplace’s nastiest bugs are lurking.
How to not get sick
• Use hand sanitizer: Say your 2 p.m. appointment is getting over a cold — shake hands with him and you could be the next victim. If you can’t hit the restroom afterward, squirt out some sanitizer.
• Wipe it down: In case you pick up something and bring it back to your own cube, clean your keyboard, mouse and phone with antibacterial wipes once a week, Pelzman recommends.
• Get your flu shot: Protect yourself and you end up protecting others — it’s a concept known as herd immunity, Pelzman says. “A buffer of a community around you will protect you from that one person who’s sick,” he says. By getting vaccinated “you add to the communal good by protecting others who might not be protected.”
• Follow the basics: Eat right, exercise and get enough sleep to keep your immune system in top form, Pelzman advises. Don’t try to make up for bad behavior with a slew of supplements: “There’s not a lot of data that any of those things do much,” he says.