People List Everyday Things That Are Harmful To Us All, And These 30 Are Subtle But Very Sinister

These things may be destroying us in ways we never thought about

Maryjane

• Published in Interesting
• December 12, 2022

A person who works in an office will sit down for more than half of their life. As the days, weeks, months, years, and decades pass, we come to the realization that we have spent the majority of our lives in a position we were never supposed to be in.

Consequently, it causes us to have bad posture, back issues, you name it. But it's hardly the only everyday item that discreetly and gradually causes more damage than good.

Things around us have a big impact on our emotions and mood, from apparent things like the food we eat to quite surprising things like the ideas we think. Just consider all the negativity that is constantly being fed to us by TV and other media, and it will be abundantly clear why we frequently feel so depressed for no apparent reason.

Crime dramas and documentaries have seen tremendous growth in popularity over the past few years. Someone asked a query on Ask Reddit, "What common everyday activities are slowly killing us?" and the eye-opening answers began to pour in.

People started sharing things that we all take for granted, even though they can harm us in ways that we never consider one by one.

The OP asks:

1. "Suffering from any form of anxiety and negative thoughts."

igkoz1

2. Plastic Everything

We cook in it, store foods, and even breathe it. Carcinogens? They're in the plastic.

QQSolomonn

3. "Hot dogs in packs of 10 and buns in packs of 8. I don't know how much longer I can take it."

dlordjr

4. "Mental health"

lasso-the-moon

5. "Sitting all day long."

hadespersephone

6. Cats

Their scratches may seem small, but eventually, it will build up and they will take over us and become the master race and dogs will have to fight back, but since cats are mischievous and have planned this for millennia, they will prevail over dogs. Then its only due time for them to overthrow the birds, reptiles and all other animals. I dunno, just a hunch

anon

7. These drugs

Ibuprofen - kidneys, Tylenol-liver. If I make it to my 90s without significant damage to these organs, I’ll consider myself superwoman.

leojaccebssen

8. "Polluted air"

laikpa

9. "Remembering embarassing moments from years ago"

BirdInTheCup

10. Bacon

Bacon is a category one known carcinogen but the meat industry in america works tirelessly to make sure the fda doesnt say anything bad about them.

anon

11. Pleasurable things

Everything that is pleasurable, tastes good, makes your life better in any way, or otherwise discourages you from suckstarting a shotgun.

Living a long and healthy life means a life not worth living.

polarisdelta

12. Cellphone at night

Using your cellphone at night without night shift on. Blue light suppresses melatonin levels, which causes sleep deprivation (weight gain, depression, anxiety) and increases the risk of cancer. Reddit being the exception, of course.

mrnicetallguy

13. Diet

A typical American food diet combined with passive entertainment is the most common thing (https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/282929.php).

anon

14. "Sugar"

0pportunistic

15. "Living"

Health is just the slowest possible rate at which you can die.

StarChaser_Tyger

16. "Drinking soda"

BrokeBoiJaden

17. Processed foods

White flour, high fructose corn syrup and other sugars, processed food and preservatives.

anon

18. "Lack of exercise"

joppies

19. Work

It kills our will to live slowly one day at a time.

TandemBeast

20. "Our own cells."

They're constantly dividing and reproducing, shortening our telomeres if we're lucky, mutating into cancer if we're not.

Looking on the bright side, if they didn't do that, we'd die a lot faster.

MedusasSexyLegHair

21. "Cell phone addiction"

... oh the irony

thebigloafer

22. "Your lack of routine."

Regularly staying up past midnight leaves your brain less time that it desperately needs to rest and repair itself, the strain can and will eventually catch up to you. Go to bed you crazies!

Edit: You guys seem curious about this so I'll go a bit more in-depth.

Your body functions like a machine, when it's not being used it performs maintenance. Your body naturally repairs itself while you sleep. Also, your body has certain internal clocks to indicate when the process should start.

One of them is a light indicator. Blue light is one of the most powerful light in the spectrum, and when your eyes absorb this blue light, your brain is able to decide if it is daytime or night time. However, blue light is emitted by other things (SUCH AS COMPUTER SCREENS). If enough blue lights is filtered through your eyes, your brain will think that it is still daytime when it is night you should be getting rest, that's why Apple has the night shift feature on its phones and computers.

The most important part of this isn't always how much you sleep, but you sleeping at the same time everyday. Your brain adapts around when you set a routine. If you have a routine in place, your brain is able to recognize that you are asleep and bring about repairs sooner and faster. If you don't have a routine it regularly will take your brain to realize that you are asleep and repairs slow.

tl;dr- Your body needs routine to be able to recognize when to heal

LyfeTrippin

23. "My kids."

AusCan531

24. Brain power

25. "Too Much Coffee"

Stimulants like caffeine, in excess (more than 3 cups a day) ever so slowly f**k up the heart.

Hank--Moody

26. Bad relationships

27. "Ozone Pollution"

recent new studies show living in a city is like smoking a pack or more of cigarettes a day...

ShackintheWood

28. Just one word

29. "Car Exhaust"

I very seriously believe that my children will look at me when i tell them we used to have tens-of-thousands of cars in cities, the way I looked at my mom when she explained that smoking around pregnant women were totally normal.

Areumert

30. Make it snappy

We may feel sadder or more anxious as a result of reading this stuff, but we may also feel smarter. Meanwhile, interacting with this list can be a way we try to psychologically organize, explain, and make sense of suffering, hard facts of life, existential questions in life, and difficult aspects of our own stories.

Leave your thoughts about this post in the comments section below.

Maryjane