Interesting Facts About Sneezing

Spring is probably my favorite season. I love the cool, sunny days. I love seeing the flowers, shrubs and trees bloom to life again. Unfortunately, my nose doesn’t share in the joy. I’m allergic to grass, pollen and mold spores, among other things. So, along with spring comes a stuffy nose, watery eyes and sneezing. Sneezing, or “sternutation” as it’s also called, is your body’s way of removing foreign matter from your nose and throat. There are other causes of sneezing, and a lot more to this seemingly simple act than you can imagine. Read this informative article and learn some interesting facts about sneezing!

What Is a Sneeze?
Although a sneeze may seem like a simple act, it’s actually an orchestration of many body parts. When your nose or throat feel an irritation or a “tickle”, a message is sent to your brain. Your brain then sends out messages to your chest muscles, abdominal muscles, diaphragm, vocal cord muscles, throat muscles, facial muscles and your eyelids. These parts work together to expel the air out of your lungs through your nose and mouth. The force of your sneeze can expel the irritants out up to 100 miles per hour!

Common and Uncommon Causes of Sneezing
Sneezing isn’t normally a sign that something serious is wrong with your body. It’s commonly caused by allergies, irritants such as dust or smoke, using nasal sprays, drug withdrawal, and foreign objects in your nose. (As a kid, my brother could tickle the end of his nostrils with a pencil point and make himself sneeze.)

According to www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov, if you have a rare genetic disorder called “Snatiation”, you’ll sneeze after eating a big meal. “Snatiation” is an backronym for “Sneezing Noncontrollably at a Time of Indulgence of the Appetite- a Trait Inherited and Ordained to Be Named”, according to www.snatiation.com.

Sneezing can also be caused by plucking your eyebrows or nasal hair, and exposure to bright light. An interesting fact about sneezing is, if you sneeze when you walk outside in the bright sunshine you’re a “photic sneezer”. This is an inherited trait that one in three people have, according to kidshealth.org.
Another interesting fact about sneezing is that it can also be caused by sexual arousal, thinking of sex, and having an orgasm, according to the BBC news. Researchers aren’t sure exactly why this happens. It could be because, during sexual arousal, the autonomic nervous system sends signals to the genitals. Since there is also erectile tissue inside the nose, this could cause these tissues to fill out, resulting in sneezing.

Why “Bless You” Is Said After Sneezing
During the Middle Ages it was thought that sneezing, an act of forcing a great amount of air from your body, could actually be fatal because you could lose your very breath of life. There were also superstitions that warned of evil spirits entering your mouth while you were sneezing. On the other hand, sneezing could be a good thing, evicting your evil spirits or sins. That’s why we say “Bless You” or “God Bless You”. Either as a way to “bless you” for continued health since you made it through that sneeze without dying. Or, as a hope that no evil spirits entered your body while you were sneezing. And, as a way to help keep the evilness from re-entering your body.

The World’s Longest Sneeze
According to www.medhunters.com, twelve-year-old Donna Griffiths of England began sneezing on January 13, 1981. She didn’t stop sneezing until September 16, 1983, 978 days later.

Resources
http://soundmedicine.iu.edu/segment.php4?seg=288
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1017036
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/health/7792102.stm
http://kidshealth.org/kid/talk/qa/sneeze.html
http://www.discovery.com/area/skinnyon/skinnyon970411/skinny1.html
http://www.snatiation.com/
http://www.medhunters.com/articles/trivia103106.html