Hello, I am posting per the suggestion of @Michael Harrop. I am looking for expanding my knowledge on ways to avoid getting bacterial infections in any part of the body, so the need for antibiotic use is minimal or zero.
A few I know of are:
General body hygiene
Rinsing and gargling with saltwater or mouthwash whenever you come back from going outside.
Regular showering (once a day)
Handwashing frequently after touching organic and inorganic objects.
Drinking plenty of water according to your body weight.
Wearing a face mask (N95).
Making sure you cook foods at a certain temperature.
Avoiding contact with people with active infections.
Avoiding contact with pathogenic animals (ticks, mosquitoes, rats, etc.)
I would say that good hygiene (handwashing and keeping things clean) and not damaging your gut microbiome & immune system are the two main ways to avoid infections.
I will agree with Michael here that this seems excessive. Spending time in nature exposes you to "normal" (as in, what we have been exposed to throughout our evolution as a species) microbes from soil, plants, water, etc. While almost certainly not as integral to our physiology as the microbes we get passed down the generations from contact with other humans, they could still have some role to play. Yes, there are a few pathogens out there too, but you don't want to encourage a bacterial monoculture on your skin and mucous membranes by overwashing such that only the toughest, most aggressive species survive, as this is likely to lower your resistance to dysbiosis, not boost it.
Sure, don't go around drinking water from puddles and eating dirt, and don't neglect personal grooming and hygiene until you smell 24/7 of sweat thinking you're returning to some pure natural state like people in some radical communes did. But your goal shouldn't be to put up an impenetrable shield to all the world's microbes, that's one of the ways we get missing microbes to start with.
