And a year of your life is spent yawning, scratching and swallowing. Everyday actions throughout a lifetime can seem like a lifetime when added together.
Everyday actions that we barely notice, such as blinking, yawning or putting on socks, take up a lot of our time throughout our lives. But how much?
Yawn
Adults yawn on average about nine times a day — although fetuses in the womb can yawn up to 25 times daily. Over the course of a lifetime, yawning takes about two weeks, according to .
To scratch
Most people scratch themselves about 97 times a day — about two months throughout their lives, according to .
To swallow
Swallowing, an almost imperceptible activity, happens at least 500 times a day and can reach almost 2,000 times in some days, according to data cited by . This means that we spend around a year and nine months swallowing throughout our lives.
Blink
We blink about 12 times per minute while we are awake, according to a 2013 study. Each blink lasts approximately a third of a second. On a day when we are awake for 16 hours, we blink a total of 11,500 times, which means that the act of blinking takes up just over an hour a day. Over a lifetime of, say, 80 years, we spend about three and a half years blinking.
However, these are actions with a great advantage: they do not prevent us from doing anything else at the same time, that is, they do not waste our time. Now, let’s count those small actions that force us to stop everything else to do them.
The actions that really “waste” our time
Sleep
Many people have heard this — and rightly so. We spent about a third of our life sleeping. In fact, the math is easy. Just assume that we sleep an average of 8 hours a day, that is, a third of the length of a day.
To have a bath
If we assume that each person takes 8 to 10 minutes in a bath or shower, and that that person takes one bath a day, that’s about 6 months in a life of 80 years.
The time spent in the bathroom is a lot, but it is also very difficult to measure. It depends on the diet and habits on the ‘throne’. A person can spend more time on the toilet — sometimes more than the time spent sitting in a car.
Time spent in the car
In fact, commuting by car adds up to just under three years over a lifetime, according to the British Lung Foundation.
Put on socks and shoes
Assuming it takes 20 seconds to put on socks every day, this simple task adds up to about a week over the course of a lifetime.
