It’s wild to think that knowledge and information wasn’t as easily and readily available just a few decades ago. Thanks to the internet, it now reaches billions of people on demand, and the world is better off because of it.
Now, old wives’ tales were among the many things that worked before the internet in terms of spreading information. Granted, they were often dubious or even superstitious, but their prevalence was strong.
Well, turns out, not all of it was hogwash as folks on Reddit were recently sharing old wives’ tales that turned out to be true. Thanks, internet!
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Gargling with salt water helps a sore throat as well as tooth and gum issues.
When rain is coming, your joints hurt.
I used to roll my eyes and laugh when Granny said her arthritis was acting up because it was going to rain. I was 10 years old.
I'm now 53 and not laughing. Granny 1, me 0
I can't believe there are over 400 comments and nobody has mentioned one of the most valuable old wives' tales: That garlic had medicinal powers for a wide variety of ailments.
So, old wives’ tales as a concept originated centuries ago in the form of the oral tradition of storytelling. The whole idea behind old wives’ tales was to teach lessons and make concepts like death or aging easier to understand.
These tales were primarily aimed at children, but once they grew up, it was easy to understand why some grownups began picking them up too.
Open a window to let out ghosts. If you are seeing things it's probably actually gas or carbon dioxide.
Gathering herbs by the light of the moon.
Some plants, pollinated by moths, have their most potent oils at night to attract night insects. So if you need it at its strongest, pick it at night.
“Doomed is the child who, when kissed on the forehead, tastes salty. He is cursed and will soon die.”
It’s cystic fibrosis. Nowadays, we know that cystic fibrosis is due to a non functional protein that regulates salt transport; when that protein doesn’t work, you get thick, sticky mucus clogging up every membrane… and a whole bunch of salt being pumped onto the skin.
Many diseases existed for a looooooong time before we had the framework to understand them, but our ancestors were paying attention and trying to understand these tragedies through the lenses that they had. And sometimes, that’s how you get an old wives’ tale that is right on the money!
My twin brother died of CF. He was diagnosed at 3 days old because they did a salt test, and they had to cut him open and remove part of his bowel because he had a blockage and wasn't able to use the bathroom on his own. This is also due to the mucus and malabsorbtion issues that are symptoms of Cystic Fibrosis. It's an absolutely horrible disease. However, yes. Typically, the first way they test someone for Cystic Fibrosis is to do a salt test to check the salt levels on your skin.
Now, one of the major reasons why old wives’ tales were usually fake was because of the fact that they were most often propagated by illiterate women and communicated to children. If they were trying to scare kids off from a particular behavior, it didn’t have to be true—they just had to stop them from doing something. And it was really hard to fact-check them.
Pregnant women should not be near cat litter. Source: am blind in one eye from toxoplasmosis acquired in utero.
More of an old nurse's tale, but redheads need more anesthetic. Turns out that there is a linked gene to red hair that increases resistance or metabolism or something to the drug.
At any rate, waking up in the middle of a full colonoscopy sucks. Hearing the doctor say, "Ah, s**t, she's awake, give her another one..."
And the nurse, all melodramatic as she pushes another syringes worth into your IV, saying to him, "Are you *SURE*, Doctor???" as your eyes slowly close again is especially awesome.
Nurses used to put Jaundices babies on window sills until their color returned. No idea how they figured it out but it’s actually a legitimate cure!
I live next to a hospital, and from my window I can see the blue light from the tiny solarium in the maternity ward
When I was an infant I had a high Bilirubin and was put on a billi-bed. Got my first tan at 2ish days old.
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my grandson was born very jaundiced and premature as well. when finally released from hospital my son was told to expose him to sunlight as often as possible, thankfully we lived in an area with warm temps. so, several times a day he would take him to his patio and hold him out in the sun. have a couple of great pics of him holding him up like rafiki in the lion king.
My son was born jaundiced in 2020 and we would sit in our rocking chair in front of a big south facing window. They sent him home with a bili blanket but we preferred holding him in a sunny window and it worked wonderfully!
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They figured it out using the scientific process. Someone noticed that jaundiced babies recovered more quickly if when they were closer to the window. Therefore, they started testing, and realised it was indeed the case. Others tested, and the results were confirmed. Then lights were tried instead of window. Some proved more effective than others. They knew the solution before they understood the mechanism. It's a bit like this just now with some forms of migraine medication. They know some drugs work, but they haven't yet found out why.
I'm just glad they know and can provide relief to those of us who are cursed with migraines.
Load More Replies... My baby brother was born with jaundice (in the 70’s) and my mom was told to move his bassinet from window to window so he would stay in the sunshine. It worked.
Our son was 11 weeks premature and was under the light for a couple of days after he was born in 1977. He even had tiny sungoggles!
My baby cousin had this when i when i was little, she was very small and i thought they put her in the sun to make her grow 😂
We had to move our newborn's bassinet to the window with most sunlight for a few days, for the same reasons, and that was in 2020. It works wonders.
We had to leave our preemie on a console near a single pane window in our old Victorian house,. Double pane would’ve blocked out the positive benefits from the sun. It definitely helped!
My son was placed under a sunlamp straight after he was born, he was jaundiced and had a low temperature.
How? Sunlight? Isn't jaundice something to do with the liver not working properly? How does sunlight help? Feel free to ignore these questions, I know I could google them but I can't be bothered.
Adult jaundice can be a lot of things - liver, gall, etc. Baby jaundice is almost always bilirubin.
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As the centuries went by and human progress was ever so surely moving forward, old wives’ tales started getting debunked. One of the biggest oofs out there is the idea people can catch a cold from the cold.
That has since been proven to be false because a cold is caused by an infection, and not the temperature.
Honey as topical medicine. It’s actually used in hospitals now for certain kinds of wound dressings. It’s anti microbial and keeps other s**t from getting in the wound.
Red sky at night, sailors’ delight
A red sky appears when dust and small particles are trapped in the atmosphere by high pressure. This scatters blue light leaving only red light to give the sky its notable appearance. A red sky at sunset means high pressure is moving in from the west, so therefore the next day will usually be dry and pleasant.
— Met office
Other cold-related myths include: vaccinations can make you sick (they don’t, it’s a killed virus), heaps of vitamin C will keep away illness (studies can’t prove it), and chicken soup cures colds (nope, wrong again, it’s just comfort food that hydrates you, and perhaps can help ease congestion, but otherwise doesn’t have any specific effect on a viral infection).
Drinking gelatin to up amniotic fluid during pregnancy.
They wanted to schedule a c-section at 32 weeks for my kid, due to low amniotic fluid. My friends midwife told me to mix gelatin packets into apple juice and drink it before it started to thicken.. 3x a day. Brought my levels up from a 3 to an 8.. and managed to keep the kid baking for another 4 weeks.. she was born at 36 weeks, weighing 4lbs 3oz.. so, the gods only know how tiny she would have been at 32 weeks..
She was discharged with me three days later, at 4lbs 1oz.. perfectly healthy, besides being as tiny as a doll.. and she didn't wear clothes for four months because I was terrified of breaking her..
But, yeah, I *never* thought it would work..
A lot of the ones about herbal remedies. You can grow a lot of things that pharmaceutical companies deconstruct and reconstruct to make into pills. Common weeds are edible and good for your health. It’s crazy how much we’ve forgotten about the benefits of plants.
Nowadays, old wives’ tales are quite literally a thing of the past and anything can be proven or disproven in just a few moments online without having to rely on dubious maiden wisdom.
However, the fact that something is an old wives’ tale doesn’t mean it’s automatically fake. This listicle is proof of it.
A cut onion rubbed on insect bites takes away the sting. I’ve tried it on wasp and ant bites and works instantly.
My mom had what she called an old Indian trick and was able to predict if it was going to rain within 30 minutes.
In college I learned that is it got closer to raining leaves would cup to catch the water and when my mom would go outside and look at the tree leaves she could like look and see if they were cupping and she would be able to predict if it was going to rain.
For example, older folks experience joint pain right before rain because the barometric pressure tends to decrease, which in turn might make the muscles, tendons and other tissue around joints expand and put more pressure on the joints. Hence the pain.
A while back, scientists set out to prove false the old wives tale that if a pregnant woman has lots of of heartburn, her baby will be born with a thick head of hair. Except…they ended up doing the opposite. Turns out heartburn really is associated with a baby having lots of hair:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17150070/
Beer makes breast milk drop. I had never heard of this before giving birth, and a couple people had asked me while pregnant if I had my beer lined up for after I gave birth and just laughed it off. A few days after giving birth my milk still wasn’t coming in and at the pediatrician, she said, “Listen it’s an old wives tale but I swear by it, drink a beer. Preferably non alcoholic because you just need the hops.” After the appointment I grabbed a case of Heineken 0 chugged two and within hours we were breastfeeding. I now give Heineken 0 as a gift to expectant moms.
People can smell illness (at least in babies). I cant link a paper because I'm busy proving it! So far in my research people can smell the difference between a well baby vs a poorly baby
My wife usually knows that I caught some virus before I do, just because the smell. It is creepy "oh, I smell that you will stay home tomorrow" is pretty creepy line, especially because she was right 100% so far.
Another cool trick is to rub ammonia onto a mosquito bite to stop it from itching. The idea lies in the ammonia solution equalizing the counter pH of the itching caused by the bite.
My grandmother always insisted that a new mom in the family get up and walk as soon after delivery as possible. Said if you stay in the bed alot after giving birth your hips would spread and stay that way. Turns out the hormone changes during childbirth cause your cartilage to become flexible so your hips can widen some. It wears off fast though so if you stay in the bed for days, like they did back in the day, your cartilage hardens back up spread out. When you walk your center of gravity is in your pelvis and pushes it back together. I've never seen a medical study on it but none of the women in my family have wider hips after having kids.
The Coori people (aboriginal tribe for international peeps) say this too, and too keep walking while pregnant and become bed tiridden if possible
If you ever feel dehydrated get a pinch of salt put it in your water and add lemon (no sugar) and just drink. It helps.
Cold cabbage leaves relieves engorgement and mastitis pain while nursing!
It sounds SO old wives tale but it’s been proved true.
Well, it's cold which can be soothing for inflammation. There are studies that show it helped with not other understanding as to why. There are studies that show it didn't help. The conclusion? The information is too random and it needs to be studied properly.
Since it’s easy to fall prey to a fake kind of thinking, then the same tricks that apply to identifying fake news also apply to old wives’ tales:
Always check the source because if it looks fake or it has a dubious reputation, its content is probably fake too. It also helps to run the information against a quick Google search to see if others confirm it.
Ammonia on a mosquito bite.
Dab a bit of ammonia on it, and don't touch it, count to 120 seconds, and the bite is 'gone' (inflammation etc).
When I first heard of it, I didn't believe it. Now, just a touch of kitchen ammonia and don't scratch and it's beyond gone. Completely.
Letting a baby eat after you will cause them to get cavities. When my sister told us not to let my nephew eat something we've taken a bite out of, I thought she was full of s**t. It turns out adults really can transfer cavity causing bacteria to babies.
Looking at something too close (like the TV) for too long will strain your eyes.
You need to exercise your long distance focusing muscles to prevent myopia. If you always look at things close up, you can develop it. Studies show that myopia is more often linked with behavior and environment rather than genetics.
If anything, be skeptical of everything you hear and ask yourself how and why? The more you try to ask and answer these questions, the more likely you’ll find reason to deem something false or true.
In other words, deem it fake until proven true.
You really don't want to touch that frozen metal pole with your tongue.
a stitch in time saves nine.
so true.
I’ve heard this expression my entire life, and only after reading this in print, right now, and having recently started learning more about sewing, did it click that “nine” meant nine stitches! I always understood the gist of the saying, just never paid close attention to the words!
Don’t pee into the wind
Note: this post originally had 50 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
So, have you heard any old wives’ tales lately that you were mind-blown to learn are actually real? Why not share yours in the comment section below!
And if you need a fix of more tales, be sure to check out the original Reddit thread.
These seem to mostly fall into one of two categories - they're simply repeated unproven Old Wives' tales or they're well understood phenomena. One or two are simply everyday proverbs, why they're included here is not clear.
A lot of old beliefs are things that were observed to be true, but were originally attributed to the wrong cause, and later the real scientific cause was discovered.
Load More Replies... I don't think whoever wrote this quite understands what an "old wives' tale" is 😕
A suspicious amount of these have anecdotal evidence as "proof".
My family swears by hot showers during sickness. My grandpa literally had a heart attack and KNEW he was having a heart attack, but he took a shower before going to the hospital. He survived, but I don’t credit the shower. Personally, I hate showers when I’m sick because it’s hard to breathe with it so I get dizzy and tired.
So I've got a few, that can be proven with a Google search. 1) Witch Hazel, it's an external anti-inflammatory, it is found in beauty aisles now, for skin care. Or next to the rubbing alcohol in the medicine aisle. It's the active ingredient in hemorrhoid creams. It was commonly used in the middle ages by new mothers in the first week after giving birth to reduce swelling and stave off inflammation and infection. 2) Cherry Juice, this is an internal anti-inflammatory. At around the early 1700's it was discovered that drinking the juice from cherries helped ease aches in the hands and feet. By the 1760's cherry juice was being used to treat gout, successfully. 8oz glass of cherry juice a day will reduce swelling and pain from arthritis, after about a month, you should not have any pain or aches. It also prevents ankles and legs from swelling from pregnancy.
Thumbs down. The OP needs to find out what an old wives tale actually is.
These seem to mostly fall into one of two categories - they're simply repeated unproven Old Wives' tales or they're well understood phenomena. One or two are simply everyday proverbs, why they're included here is not clear.
A lot of old beliefs are things that were observed to be true, but were originally attributed to the wrong cause, and later the real scientific cause was discovered.
Load More Replies... I don't think whoever wrote this quite understands what an "old wives' tale" is 😕
A suspicious amount of these have anecdotal evidence as "proof".
My family swears by hot showers during sickness. My grandpa literally had a heart attack and KNEW he was having a heart attack, but he took a shower before going to the hospital. He survived, but I don’t credit the shower. Personally, I hate showers when I’m sick because it’s hard to breathe with it so I get dizzy and tired.
So I've got a few, that can be proven with a Google search. 1) Witch Hazel, it's an external anti-inflammatory, it is found in beauty aisles now, for skin care. Or next to the rubbing alcohol in the medicine aisle. It's the active ingredient in hemorrhoid creams. It was commonly used in the middle ages by new mothers in the first week after giving birth to reduce swelling and stave off inflammation and infection. 2) Cherry Juice, this is an internal anti-inflammatory. At around the early 1700's it was discovered that drinking the juice from cherries helped ease aches in the hands and feet. By the 1760's cherry juice was being used to treat gout, successfully. 8oz glass of cherry juice a day will reduce swelling and pain from arthritis, after about a month, you should not have any pain or aches. It also prevents ankles and legs from swelling from pregnancy.
Thumbs down. The OP needs to find out what an old wives tale actually is.
