[gnramires]

> "...decontaminate your hands because the pollutant will absorb through your skin, into your blood, and then into your brain, and probably lower your IQ!"

It probably makes sense to move to less polluted areas and such, but I doubt excessive hand washing and those smaller habits would do much. I think we'd see a clear effect of successful people being compulsive handwashers? I mean, there are impurities in other things we can't control as well (air, water, food), so minimizing impurity from the hand only makes a very small difference. Still, brilliant people live in polluted places like LA (Terence Tao comes to mind!), various places in China, etc. so it doesn't seem to determine your outcome -- in fact, research shows the impact is small (but it does exist). Success is determined by the big factors and knowledge/wisdom-based choices, not being a few percent faster or more effective at solving puzzles -- unless you're in a particularly competitive job (maths competitions, professional athlete, professional chess player, etc.). Most mathematicians choose to explore different directions, different fields instead of competing head to head to solve single problems[1]. Our bodies and brains are also remarkably robust to small loads of impurities... in fact, one of the techniques of AI is to get rid of a few neurons here and there (DIY not advised). Hope this alleviates some concerns :)

[1] I got this from Maryam Mirzakhani interviews: https://news.stanford.edu/2017/07/15/maryam-mirzakhani-stanf...