From now henceforth, don’t fall for these 15 popular lies

As human beings, we tend to believe many things.

Truth is we are responsible for what we choose to believe and what we throw out the window. Some of these belief systems are probably built on convictions borrowed from our ancestors, stories from our childhoods, scary medieval ideas or life hack seen on the internet.?

No lie, this information can sometimes be true and even useful but it’s safe not to believe in everything from the ground up.

1. Mice Love Cheese

Tom and Jerry lovers will probably argue that mice adore cheese. Cartoons even use cheese as the default food used in mice traps. This is not the case. Mice actually love anything they get their hands (limbs) on, whether they can eat it or not. Have you ever noticed part of your stored cardboard or cloth chewed off? This is the work of mice. The reason why mice are assumed to adore cheese is that in ancient times, cheese used to be stored in open places as compared to other foods. The mice found easy food this way.

2. Dogs don’t see colours

According to our early education, dogs only see things in black and white and determine the outlines of objects using different brightness levels. This is not accurate. Scientists have managed to prove that dogs have colour vision but not as perfect as humans. In the eye, there and Cones that are useful in colour perception. Humans have three while dogs only have two (Yellow and Blue). Therefore dogs can only distinguish green, yellow or red objects based on their colour. They can also distinguish up to 40 shades of grey.

3. Stress causes grey hair

It is wrong to think that if you have multiple stressful events in your life, your hair will turn grey sooner. Hair turns grey based on certain genetic characteristics in our bodies and not the things hardships we go through externally. This notion was created in movies and films but doesn’t really apply in real life.

4. You can’t swim after you eat

Unless you are competing for the gold medal in the Olympics, it is completely possible to swim with a full belly.

5. Ostriches hide their heads in the sand when they feel threatened

The world’s largest bird wouldn’t be stupid to leave the rest of its body uncovered while hiding its head in the sand when threatened. The idea is false. When threatened, ostriches normally lie in the ground and lower their heads. Hiding its head in the sand can lead to suffocation.

6. Cats always fall on their feet

Cats have an incredible ability to rotate in the air on a free fall. This is because, in higher altitudes, cats have the ability to open up their bodies to resemble a parachute, lowering the speed of the fall. The higher the altitude, the more time it has to prepare itself for the fall. However, when they fall from a lower altitude, cats don’t have enough time to prep themselves instead, land weirdly.

7. Opposites attract

Let’s get this straight guys, this is only applicable to magnets. In human relationships, we often develop a liking towards people who we share same interests with or who we have something in common.

8. Eight hours of sleep

This is the most believed lie in the universe. Most people would recommend that you sleep for 8 hours but sleep patterns are usually specific to different people. Some people prefer taking a 1-hour power nap while other can sleep for more.

9. Shaving

At puberty, your parents probably told you not to shave or cut off the first strand of hair on your face (or your whole body), with the notion that it makes hair ‘thicker’ and grow faster. This is not true. As the body develops, hair eventually becomes longer and thicker and has nothing to do with shaving.

10. Soap kills bacteria

You may be familiar with popular soap adverts that tell you soap kills 99.9 percent of bacteria. Though part of this might be true, we are still left with the 1 percent that never goes away. Have you ever asked yourself why? Well, it’s simple. Soap does not kill ‘Nuisance’ organisms. In drinking water, nuisance organisms are those that do not cause diseases (harmless) but only create problems related to odour, taste and colour.

11. Pain after exercising

What was the feeling when you went through an intense gym session for the first time? Pain in the muscles right? Most of us think that if we feel pain after exercising then we have exercised well. This is not the case. The more pain you feel, the harder is it for you to even exercise. The pain is as a result of micro-traumas in the muscles.

12. Antibiotics kill viruses

Humans still do not have a cure for all diseases in the world. It is wrong to assume that antibiotics can get rid of anything. Though they are powerful remedies for many complications, They only act on bacteria but not viruses. So you will be wasting your time taking antibiotics when you want to get rid of the flu. It is recommended that you use anti-viral remedies instead.

13. Watching TV

Every mother would probably chase their child away from the Television set if they were watching in from a close distance. Most people would tell you that sitting close to a TV is bad for your eyes. This is a wrong assumption. Scientists have proven that the only thing you can get from sitting close to TV set is an eye strain. Besides, kids do this all the time and it is a habit that goes away once you get older.

14. Eating and exercising

It is wrong to believe that you don’t have to watch your eating habits after a thorough work out session. To stay in shape, a specific diet must be followed, even if you are an Olympic Champion. This is because once you start losing energy when exercising, a mechanism in the body begins the storage process, meaning the weight of the body increases as energy is stored.

15. 5 senses

In Primary school, your teacher probably told you that humans only have five senses: Taste, Smell, Hearing, Touch and Sight. Well, those are the five basic ones. Ladies boast of having a sixth sense, Intuition, which is really a debate for another day. According to scientists, humans always have a sense of balance that allows us not to fall when we step forward, a sense of pain, a sense of space, a sense of external temperature, posture, external stimuli, a sense of time and even a feeling of hunger.