430 tips. Each one states what it costs, what it gets you, and how strong the evidence is.
You don't have to do them all. This is a menu ranked by value — pick one or two.
Laws and public programs in this edition follow the United States.
Buckling up in the front seat roughly halves your chance of being killed in a crash. In the front of a light truck it cuts the risk by about 60%. Of the people who died in U.S. cars in 2022 whose belt use is known, half were not buckled up.
Evidence keeps growing that putting deadly means out of reach works: after painkillers were restricted, related suicides fell 43%; at places where people often jumped, adding barriers cut suicides there by 86%. So don't stock sleeping pills or pesticide at home. When you can't see a way out, call 12356 first — it works nationwide in China and is staffed at least 18 hours a day.
Paraquat has no antidote, and more than 40% of people who swallow it can't be saved. It inflames the lungs, which slowly stiffen, and the kidneys and liver are hurt as well. Among people saved from carbon monoxide poisoning, nearly half have a brain that is not what it was 6 weeks later, and even with hyperbaric oxygen, a quarter still do.
Among people who fell from a height and ended up in a trauma ICU, only 5.5% died, but the injuries were severe and treatment was long. Nearly half had injuries to 3 or more body regions, more than a third needed a ventilator, and the longest ICU stay was 132 days. Half of them fell from no more than 3 meters. Among those severely hurt, fewer than 60% were later able to go back to work.
Among proper donors who are screened layer by layer before donating and checked afterward, 31 in every 10,000 reached kidney failure 15 years later, versus 4 in 10,000 among equally healthy people who didn't donate. People who sold a kidney had no screening and no follow-up; 6 years later 86% said their health was worse, and three-quarters were still in debt.
Radiation has no smell, color or temperature, and most radioactive sources look like an ordinary piece of metal, so “it looks fine” is no way to judge. The chance of an ordinary person running into one is very low: fewer than 1 incident per year per 10,000 sources. But once it happens it can't be undone. In 1987 in Brazil, people broke open a radiotherapy machine from an abandoned clinic for scrap metal, and in the end 4 people died.
If the mouth droops, one arm can't be raised, or speech is slurred, call 120 (China's ambulance number) at once. When a clot-dissolving drug is given to open the blocked vessel within 3 hours of onset, the chance of recovering to mostly looking after yourself is about 1.75 times that of no drug. If it is delayed to 3 to 4.5 hours, it is only 1.26 times. After 4.5 hours no difference can be seen. Note the exact time the symptoms started. Don't give food, water or pills, and don't drive yourself.
If you look only at the three signs of face, arms and speech, more than one in ten strokes will be missed, because some strokes start with neither a drooping mouth nor a weak hand. If unsteadiness, double vision and a missing patch in the vision are counted too, the share missed falls to 4.4%. Sudden spinning dizziness with inability to stand, double vision, or being unable to touch your fingertip to your nose are also reasons to call 120 and note the time.
If there is pressing pain, tightness or squeezing in the chest lasting more than 15 minutes without easing, call 120 (China's ambulance number). Among those whose blocked vessel was opened within 55 minutes of reaching the hospital, 2.8% died within 30 days. Among those who took longer than 55 minutes, 9.7% did. Every stretch of delay means more heart muscle dies. Don't drive yourself: losing consciousness on the road is a second accident.
If a tearing pain moves from the chest to the back and down to the lower back, say directly when you call 120 (China's ambulance number): "it feels like tearing, and the pain is moving downward." Without surgery, with medicine alone, the death rate for this illness is 58%. The treatment is the opposite of a heart attack: only if the doctor thinks of it will they do a contrast CT scan, instead of giving blood thinners or clot-dissolving drugs. If the blood pressure differs a lot between the two arms, or the pulse can't be felt on one side, say that too.
Running cool water over it for a full 20 minutes within 3 hours of the injury cuts the chance of later needing a skin graft to about 60% of what it is without rinsing. Use cool water, not ice water, because ice makes the injury worse. If clothing is stuck to the wound, don't tear it off. After rinsing, cover it with a clean cloth and go to the hospital. Don't put on toothpaste, soy sauce, sesame oil or flour. If you only remember after a while, rinsing within 3 hours still helps.
If a rash suddenly spreads over the body together with trouble breathing or dizziness, treat it as anaphylaxis (a severe allergic reaction). Call 120 (China's ambulance number) at once and say directly "suspected anaphylaxis," so the ambulance brings epinephrine (adrenaline). Allergy pills and steroids work slowly and can't replace epinephrine. If you have had one before, ask a doctor to prescribe an auto-injector pen, and inject into the middle of the outer thigh, which can be done through trousers.
One interruption averaging 2.8 seconds doubles the chance of making an error in the steps that follow. A 4.4-second interruption triples it. A field study also found that it takes an average of 25 minutes to get back to the interrupted task, with two other things squeezed in between. Interrupted people worked faster, but their stress, frustration and effort were all higher.
Rewrite "I'm going to do this" as "At 8 a.m. on Tuesday, when I sit down at my desk, I write the introduction first." Pooling 94 tests, people who wrote their goals this way were clearly more likely to reach them, a medium-to-large effect. All you change is the wording of one sentence. It costs no money and takes little effort.
Students estimated they would finish their thesis in 33.9 days. It actually took 55.5 days, and only 29.7% finished in the time they had estimated. Another group was asked to recall how long the last similar task took before estimating, and the share who finished on time rose from 29.3% to 60.0%.
Under the rules, while an entertainment venue is open, its evacuation routes and safety exits must be clear. They may not be blocked or locked, nothing may be put in the way, and the signs may not be covered. Internet cafes likewise may not lock doors or windows shut. Failing this is illegal, and you can report it. If the room is underground, has only one exit or the hallway is piled with clutter, go somewhere else.
Drugs today don't look like drugs. "Head-rush" vapes (上头电子烟) mixed with synthetic cannabinoids look much like ordinary vapes, and some people go to bars, KTVs and hotels to hand them out to try. Anyone who tricks others into using them faces 10 to 15 days of detention and a fine of 1000 to 5000 yuan, and the person tricked into using them also faces 10 to 15 days of detention. If a drink has been out of your sight, get a new one.
On the first day after a loved one dies, the chance of a heart attack is 21.1 times the usual, and it falls day by day after that. For people aged 60 to 89, the share who have a heart attack or stroke within 30 days after a partner dies roughly doubles, then falls back after a month. If you already have cardiovascular disease, don't stop your medicine these days. If your chest feels crushed, you can't catch your breath, or one side of your body goes weak, call 120 (China's ambulance number) right away.
The regulator's own words are: a return above 6% should raise questions, above 8% is very dangerous, and at 10% or more you should be prepared to lose your entire principal. Legitimate wealth products are no longer allowed to promise a guaranteed principal or return. Money lost in illegal fundraising is, by regulation, borne by you, and no one steps in to cover it when things go wrong.
For every 1 percentage point higher in the yearly fee rate, you end up with about 18% less after 20 years and about 26% less after 30 years. Picking the lower-fee fund within the same category is the one thing here that you can know for sure in advance.
Prepaying a mortgage is the same as earning your mortgage rate with certainty. So ask only one thing: is the after-tax return you can get steadily over the long run higher than your mortgage rate? If it is, don't rush to prepay; if it isn't, or you can't tell, prepay. With equal-installment loans, interest makes up more of the payment in the first few years, so the earlier you prepay the more you save. The "prepayment estimate" in your bank's app gives you the number directly.
Once your name is on the register, you are legally a shareholder. The money you promised at registration must be paid on schedule, and if you don't pay, you owe the company for its losses on top of paying it in. If other shareholders did not actually pay in their money when the company was set up, you also share in repaying the shortfall. The business was run by someone else, and the debts are in your name.
What you save is the subscriptions you stopped using long ago but that still charge you every month. Going through the auto-debit lists in Alipay, WeChat, Apple and Android takes less than 20 minutes. By regulation, a merchant must give you a clear reminder before charging you, and must also give you a way to cancel at any time that is easy to find and easy to use.
By regulation, the share of sales that lotto and numbers games must pay out as prizes is at least 50%, and for Double Color Ball (双色球) it is 51%. That means for every 1 CNY you put in, you get back 0.51 CNY on average over the long run, a steady loss of 49%. In 2024, 623,486,000,000 (6234.86亿) CNY of lottery tickets were sold nationwide, and 161,031,000,000 (1610.31亿) CNY of that went straight into the public welfare fund (公益金), which is not part of the prizes.
A baby should get the first shot of hepatitis B vaccine within 24 hours of birth. Of people infected with hepatitis B in infancy and early childhood, about 95% go on to chronic hepatitis. Most people infected as adults clear it on their own. So the earlier this shot is given, the more it helps. If the mother's hepatitis B surface antigen is positive, the baby also gets hepatitis B immune globulin at the same time.
A newborn has very little vitamin K stored. Without a supplement, there can be bleeding, and the late-onset kind is often bleeding in the brain. In places where this shot is not given routinely, 478 in every 100,000 (10万) newborns get this bleeding. The shot is estimated to cut it by more than 78%. Proper hospitals in China give it routinely, and for a birth at home or at an irregular facility, ask on your own whether it was given.
At your first prenatal checkup, get tested for HIV, syphilis and hepatitis B. You don't pay for the tests. Finding one is not the end of the road. The state provides medicine and a care plan free, to block the way the disease passes from mother to child; this is called blocking mother-to-child transmission.
If any one of these appears, go to the hospital the same day; don't wait at home overnight. A headache that won't go away or keeps getting worse, changes in vision, a fever of 38 ℃. Severe swelling of the hands or face, trouble breathing, chest pain or a racing heart. Severe belly pain that doesn't ease, the baby's movements stopping or clearly decreasing, vaginal bleeding or leaking fluid. One arm or leg both swollen and painful, thoughts of hurting yourself or the baby. This also applies within a year after birth.
When the water breaks, you don't pack your things slowly and then set out. The right thing is to lie down on the spot, raise your hips on something, and call 120 (China's ambulance number). Standing and walking makes the fluid drain faster, and the umbilical cord may be swept down with it. That is an emergency that can kill the baby.
Some illnesses are counted in hours. If a boy has sudden severe pain on one side of the scrotum, it is testicular torsion: the blood vessel attached to the testicle has twisted shut and cut off its blood supply. If it is treated within 6 hours, 97.2% of testicles are saved. By 19 to 24 hours, only 42.5% are. This kind of pain can't wait until school lets out or until exams are over.
Controlling other people's computers, servers or cameras without permission carries up to 3 years once it reaches 20 machines, and 3 to 7 years in especially serious cases. Even when it is not a crime, it brings detention of up to 5 days and a possible fine of 50,000 to 500,000 CNY. A person who has received a criminal penalty is barred for life from key posts in network security management and network operations.
Rushing to the company when you suddenly feel unwell does not get you any extra money. A deemed work injury (视同工伤) requires that you fall ill during working hours and at your post, and falling ill on the way without reaching work was never covered. If emergency treatment lasts longer than 48 hours, that does not count either. The few dozen minutes lost trying to meet the conditions are paid for with your own chance of survival.
Averaged across the world, one more year of schooling raises personal income by about 9% a year, and the return for women has consistently been higher than for men. That figure is about formal schooling; it can't be applied directly to signing up for a class. Use it as a yardstick: if a course asks for 30,000 (3万) CNY and half a year, ask whether the change in income it brings is worth as much as one more year of school.
By one U.S. estimate, about 47% of jobs were at high risk of being taken over by computers; later estimates made task by task came out much lower. There are three hurdles machines find hard to clear: manual dexterity, coming up with new things, and dealing with people. So work that is done on site, in non-standard surroundings, with judgment on the spot is harder to replace, and jobs with fixed procedures that mostly process information carry the highest risk.
A master's costs tuition, and it also costs you two or three years of pay, which is usually the bigger part. In a UK study that removed personal differences, at age 35 women with a master's earned only about 2% more, and men about 2% less. Law, economics and management paid about 20% more, while art, English and philosophy paid more than 10% less, so work it out for your own field.
In the same UK study, after removing personal differences, at age 35 women with a PhD earned about 8% more than those with only a bachelor's, while men earned about 9% less. The mental strain of a PhD is also heavy: about a quarter of PhD students across countries have clear symptoms of depression, and about one sixth have clear symptoms of anxiety. So a PhD pays off only when the job you are aiming at hires only PhDs.
An IOU should be complete: lender, borrower, amount, interest rate, term, way of repayment, with both signatures. Send the money by transfer, not cash, and a complete IOU is easier to sue on. When you guarantee someone's debt, check whether the word "joint" (连带) appears. With an ordinary guarantee (一般保证), you come in only after the creditor has sued the borrower and could not collect. With a joint-and-several liability guarantee (连带责任保证), the creditor can come straight to you for the money.
The advice from the Consular Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (外交部领事司) to citizens traveling abroad is: don't carry luggage or items for other people, especially contraband or things you don't know about. If drugs or smuggled goods are actually found in the luggage, "I didn't know what was inside" is something you have to prove yourself. Receiving packages for others within China is the same, especially when you are asked to pay first and be refunded later.
These part-time jobs earn a few hundred CNY, and the price is a criminal record. One person took his ID card and 1 bank card to a designated place, helped with transfers and withdrawals, and earned more than 500 CNY. The procuratorate did not prosecute him, but the police still detained him for 10 days and fined him 1,000 CNY. Another person handed his own and other people's bank cards and SIM cards to a gang to receive and withdraw money, and was sentenced to 2 years and 3 months and fined 22,000 CNY (2.2万).
Keeping a found item for your own use, once the value reaches "a relatively large amount" and you refuse to hand it over, brings up to 2 years, and 2 to 5 years for a huge amount. Withdrawing money from an ATM with a found bank card is heavier, counted as fraudulent use of someone else's credit card: a relatively large amount brings up to 5 years and a fine of 20,000 to 200,000 CNY (2万到20万). For the withdrawal, the police open a case directly, and the owner doesn't have to sue.
Throwing things downstairs can bring 5 days of detention (拘留) and a fine of 1,000 CNY even if no one is hit, and 10 to 15 days of detention in serious cases. Hitting someone changes the charge: a man on the 21st floor, after drinking, threw empty bottles and glasses down onto a school playground, seriously injured a 13-year-old student and was sentenced to 10 years. Another person threw 8 bricks from the 32nd floor and killed 1 person, and in 2024 the death sentence was approved.
Secretly filming, peeping at or spreading other people's private matters brings detention of up to 5 days (拘留) or a fine of up to 1,000 CNY, and detention of 5 to 10 days in more serious cases. Using special equipment for secret filming and causing serious consequences brings up to 2 years. Two people installed equipment in rooms in three hotels to film remotely, and were sentenced to 1 year 3 months and 1 year. A camera at your own home doesn't count, but one in a room someone else stays in does.
