Health
-
Background: Yoga is often thought of as an activity that requires focus, and is thus incompatible with meaninglessly scrolling through random Internet content. And it’s true that most yoga positions do not leave the yoga practitioner’s hands free to casually browse a cell phone while yoga-ing. The issue: Unfortunately, the result of this is that…
-
Background: In today’s decadent sedentary world, it’s easy to barely walk around at all. This puts humans in danger of having their legs become vestigial, atrophying and causing the species to evolve into a slug-like form. Proposal: In order to solve this, we need to get people walking again. And what better way than by…
-
Background: Residential homes are often protected from burglary by locked doors and locked windows (Figure 1), and occasionally by more substantial measures such as barred windows (Figure 2). The issue: However, none of that helps once an intruder breaches the perimeter of the home: once they’re inside, they are free to loot at their leisure—an…
-
Background: Most kitchens contain a countertop and overhead cabinets. The doors on these cabinets generally swing open. The issue: An unlucky individual may stand up underneath one of these open cabinet doors and injure themselves on the edge. Although this situation may seem unlikely, it can arise when a person bends over to pick up…
-
Background: Taking a nap in the late afternoon can be a very appealing prospect. The issue: Unfortunately, a late-in-the-day nap can easily mess up a person’s sleep schedule, causing them to stay up until 3 AM. What is needed for most people is some sort of “nap deterrent” that will promote a daylight-hour-compatible sleep schedule.…
-
Background: There are many phone apps that provide neighborhood-focused local news updates in real time (e.g. “Nextdoor” and “Citizen”). This can make a person aware of every single burglary, car accident, “suspicious dog,” and other strange happening that may occur in their general vicinity. The issue: While this information can be useful, it often leads…
-
Background: Part 1: Some credit cards provide special bonus features, such as a discount on certain purchases, “airline miles” that can be redeemed for plane tickets, or extended warranties on certain purchases. Part 2: When attempting to eat healthy foods, the battle is often lost at the supermarket: it’s easy to buy a gallon of…
-
Background: During the times of the COVID-plague, it has been recommended that people maintain “social distancing”—keeping apart by approximately six feet. The issue: Unfortunately, this advice is difficult to follow in many situations, for example, on public transit, in an elevator, etc. Proposal: This snake-based “sssssssssocial distancing” plan involves training a territorial species of snake…
-
Background: Diet fads come and go, but most have at least one element in common: the requirement that individuals be deliberate about what they eat (rather than ravenously consuming everything like a starved beast). The issue: Unfortunately, it’s difficult to have self-control when food is delicious and plentiful. Thus, most people eat larger portions of…
-
Background: It is well known that washing hands for a surprisingly long time (30 seconds!) substantially reduces microbial contamination (Figure W1). The issue: Unfortunately, people generally feel, psychologically speaking, that their hands are clean immediately upon rinsing them with even the slightest hint of water. The challenge, therefore, is to encourage people to wash…
WorstPlans: updated every Monday since July 2014! 