“Sneeze on Monday, you sneeze for danger;
Sneeze on Tuesday, you kiss a stranger;
Sneeze on Wednesday, you sneeze for a letter;
Sneeze on Thursday for something better;
Sneeze on Friday, you’ll sneeze for sorrow;
Sneeze on Saturday, your sweetheart to-morrow;
Sneeze on a Sunday your safety seek,
The devil will have you the rest of the week!”
(William Shepard Walsh, Henry Collins Walsh, and William H Garrison. American Notes and Queries, Vol. 6. 1891.)
Achoo! Superstitions about sneezing abound.
Perhaps the mysterious “seizure” of the sudden involuntary reflex is to blame. After all, breath is representative of the soul and breathing in is also breathing in life. In some cultures, sneezing was considered a swift release of that essence or soul. If the soul left the body through a sneeze, it was presumed the individual would die without his soul. The mysteries and superstitions surrounding sneezing most probably continued on from this point.
A sneeze has also been associated with being a good omen or bad omen bringing good luck or misfortune. In Ancient Greece, sneezes were believed to be prophetic signs from the gods. In 401 BC, for instance, the Athenian general Xenophon gave a speech exhorting his fellow soldiers to fight against the Persians. Greeks believed sneezing was sign of the Gods revealing the hidden future.
The Scots believed that a newborn baby was under the power of a fairy until it gave its first sneeze, then the spell was broken, Midwives carried snuff with them to induce sneezing. Also, it was believed people should clap after sneezing to avoid killing a fairy.
Many cultures think sneezing sometime between noon and midnight is a sign of good luck, while others think it’s a bad sign. In other cases, some people believe if you sneeze while getting dressed, something bad will happen that day. Still others think that if you turn your head to the right when you sneeze you’ll have good luck, while turning your heard to the left will bring bad luck. One old wives' tale says it is bad luck to sneeze at the same time as someone you're with.
In some Asian cultures, when you sneeze it means someone is talking about you behind your back., but the Japanese have taken it one step further. They believe that sneezing once means someone is gossiping something nice about you. Twice means something not as nice. Thrice – gossip that’s really, really not nice at all.
In Polish culture, a sneeze is more than just a sign that someone is talking about you: it means your mother-in-law is talking badly about you. If they aren’t married, it means that when they are, their relationship with their mother-in-law will be a poor one. If the person who sneezes is unmarried, they may have a bad relationship with their mother-in-law once married. This superstition has become a popular belief in the modern age.
Why do people say, “God bless you,” after someone sneezes? The blessing may stem from the belief that when people sneeze, their souls (which reside in the head) sneak out of their body. There are varying accounts as to the origin of the response. One belief is that it originated in ancient Rome when the bubonic plague was raging through Europe. One of the symptoms of the plague was coughing and sneezing, and it is believed that Pope Gregory I (Gregory the Great) suggested saying “God bless you” after a person sneezed in hopes that this prayer would protect them from an otherwise certain death.
Anatomy Of a Sneeze
So, what is a sneeze? Sneezing is simply an involuntary release of air that helps your body to get rid of irritants in our nose and throat, like allergens, dirt, and dust – a physiologic response to the irritation of the respiratory epithelium lining of the nose.
But, how, exactly, does the response work?
The process of a sneeze defined:
The sneeze reflex starts with the irritation of your nasal lining as sensed by the cilia on these cells. (Cilia are hair-like structures found on the surface of cells that can detect irritants.) These receptors send signals via sensory trigeminal nerves to your sneezing center in the lateral medulla of the spinal cord.
Then comes the triggering of two different nerve signals – one is dispatched via motor nerves to pharyngeal, laryngeal, and respiratory muscles, and the other is transmitted via parasympathetic nerves increasing nasal and tear secretion.
Just before the sneeze, pressure builds up in the chest as your chest muscles compress the lungs, and the vocal cords close. When your vocal cords suddenly open again, air is driven up your respiratory tract and through the nose at a high speed. Your eyes shut, and the diaphragm moves upward as your chest muscles contract, releasing air from your lungs.
That air allows thousands of droplets to project from your nose and mouth as a way to get rid of the allergen or irritant.
“It was a gratifying sneeze – not like one of those sneezes where you’re right on the edge of sneezing and it never comes and then you want to kill yourself. This one was hearty and made me feel as if I’d unclogged something deep inside me. Almost as if it was something spiritual. But it wasn’t, it was just boogers.”
– Ted Wilson, Electric Lit
Sneeze Trivia
* It is impossible to sneeze without closing your eyes.
* Rarely does the act of sneezing (also called sternutation) involve only one sneeze. Often two or three sneezes come in quick succession. Sometimes that takes two, three, or four sneezes to rid the nose of what's irritating it.
* Many people sneeze two or three times in a row for a few seconds. But that's nothing compared with the sneezing done by Donna Griffiths of Worcestershire, England. She's believed to hold the record for the longest sneeze in the world. Sneezing lore has it that she sneezed continuously from January 13, 1981 (when she was 12), until September 16, 1983 – an estimated million times and a total of 977 days. No word on what caused her to sneeze or why she finally stopped.
* Some people are loud sneezers, and others sneeze more softly, but everyone makes some noise when sneezing. Here's why: Air is moving more than 100 miles an hour through the nose during a sneeze.
* The spray from a sneeze has been documented to travel as far as three feet, but some experts say sure it travels farther than that, estimating the potential distance at five feet or more.
* Plucking the eyebrows can trigger a sneeze. Plucking may set off a nerve in the face that connects to the nasal passages.
* Exercise can cause sneezing. Overexertion causes hyperventilation.
* Sunshine and bright light can also trigger a sneeze. In a 2019 study published in Scientific Reports, researchers found that a type of sneezing that can be induced by bright light, also known as phoetic sneeze reflex, is an inherited, genetic trait. occurs in one out of every four people. (In the study, it was seen in 30% of men and 21% of women.)
* People don’t sneeze when they are asleep as sneezing nerves are also sleeping. (This really makes me have questions about Donna Griffiths and the record for sneezing.)
* Some people believe that saying an odd word right as you feel you’re about to sneeze distracts you from sneezing.
* Some people may sneeze during the initial phases of sexual arousal. Doctors suspect that the phenomenon might arise from a case of crossed wires in the autonomic nervous system, which regulates a number of functions in the body, including "waking up" the genitals during sexual arousal. The nose, like the genitals, contains erectile tissue. This phenomenon may prepare the vomeronasal organ for increased detection of pheromones.
* Estimates have varied wildly for the velocity of the average sneeze. The general consensus seems to be that most of us do it at about 100 mph, which is equivalent to a hurricane squall – and compares to an ordinary standing breath speed of around 5mph. But a children’s health museum in the US claims to have recorded a sneezing velocity of 650mph – some 85 per cent of the speed of sound. (Source needed.)
* Holding in a sneeze greatly increases pressure inside the respiratory system to a level of about 5 to 24 times that caused by the sneeze itself. Experts say holding this additional pressure inside your body can cause potential injuries, which can be serious. Some of these injuries include: ruptured eardrum; middle ear infection; damaged blood vessels in the eyes, nose, or eardrums; diaphragm injury; or even aneurysm or broken ribs.
* You may be able to stop a sneeze by tickling the roof of your mouth with your tongue. After about 5 to 10 seconds, the urge to sneeze may dissipate. Another tongue method involves pressing your tongue hard against your two front teeth until the urge to sneeze passes.
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