Featured Image Credit: Getty stock
Topics: Jake Gyllenhaal, Health
Jess Battison
Forget the big debates in global politics for a minute and move yourself on to the long-running debate on personal hygiene.
Not quite about the way to hang toilet roll or the age-old chat about Taylor Swift cleaning (or not cleaning) her legs, it’s the simple: Should you shower everyday?
A doctor seems to have finally settled it after being probed about Jake Gyllenhaal’s habits.
Quite a while ago in the lore of pop culture, the Donnie Darko actor said he was increasingly finding bathing ‘to be less necessary’ as well as joking that he ‘of course’ doesn’t shower.
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The celebrity did later clear this up as a 'sarcastic and ironic' thing, but it’s still stuck with people and the joke lives on that he doesn’t shower everyday.
This prompted Dr. Mikhail Varshavski to respond on socials as the American said Gyllenhaal ‘knows what he’s talking about’. Well, for the sake of this, we’ll have to run with the joke that the actor’s initial comments were real.
Nicknamed ‘Dr Mike’, he claims that ‘showering is individual’.
“Not everyone wants to shower every single day,” he says.
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The doctor even claims that he has this argument ‘literally all the time’ – including with ex-girlfriends.
“Yes, if you go to the gym and you’re sweaty and you’re soaked and you’re smelly, yes, you need a shower,” he continues. “But if you did nothing all day, and you sat and you have textured hair, and your hair is not greasy, you might not need a shower.”
Dr Mike says it needs to be based on ‘individual needs’.
He says that while it might be the overall view that people should shower every day, the reality is: “If you over shower, you over strip your body of its oils, your hair of its oils – you could actually do more harm.”
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As well as claiming that having a shower every single day ‘is not a hard and fast rule’, Dr Mike adds that people should ‘keep your shower short’.
“You don’t need ultra hot showers for like 20 minutes,” he says. “Keep it three, four minutes [of] cool, running water. Boom.”
Harvard Health Publishing even explains that it’s ‘not at all clear that a daily shower accomplishes much’.
“In fact, a daily shower may even be bad for your health,” it adds.
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But in the comments of Dr Mike’s video, not everyone is totally convinced as one points out: “In both medicine and law one phrase remains sacred: ‘It depends’.”
Others found problem with the short showers as one wrote: “Showering for less than five minutes should be considered a speed run.”
Well, while Dr Mike may have tried to end the debate, it doesn’t mean everyone has accepted it.