How Sneezing Works

to knock your socks clean off. And yes, Chuck, we are indeed proud of this book. It is truly, indubitably the first Stuff you Should note book and it's coming out this November and you can order it now, pre order everywhere you get books, so do that, and we thank you in advice. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of My Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W.

Chuck Ran over there. Jerry is a disembodied spirit, but she's still with us, haunting us, and we are now set up for achievement, which means this is Stuff you Should Know. Set up for achievement. That sounds like very eighties Reagan era campaign. It does, It definitely does. Uh certainly not the kind of thing that would irritate you, whether it be in your nose or your brain or anywhere. Not not the best segue, huh. I'm surprised you didn't try and work uh, stern mutation in there. Somehow. I

love that word. Are you Were you familiar with that word before? I don't think you know. I'm forty nine years old. I don't think I've ever heard sneezing being called stern mutation. I got oh, man, I just remembered. I'm forty four now, so you you got me beat. But I'm in the same boat with you. Yeah, I've never heard that. But that is what if you're a scientist, Well, if you're a scientist and you want to be a

real stuff, you probably say sternutation. If your scientists that wants to be friends with people, you'll still probably say sneezing. And I mean, it sounds super clinical, but it's actually really old. It's from I think the first appearance of it is in a text from fifteen seventy six. Old. To me, it sounds clinical but there's also a couple of derivative words stern mutative or stern you too, Tori are things that make you sneeze and Howard Stern bubba

booe right chewy. So we're talking sneezing obviously, because we just discoursed on stern youitation, I'm adding an extra syllable. There aren't I stern mutation. That's the Josh Clark way. Why do I have to complicate? Why do I have to complimentate things? Uh, we're talking about sneez sin. It's the sneezing, and sneezing is a really sort of and I hate it when people call things like this elegant,

so I'm gonna refrain. But it's just a very efficient system that the human body has worked out to basically allow your your nose and we'll get into all the ins and outs of how it all happens, but to allow your nose and your nasal passage in your brain to act as bouncers and just say get out of my body. Fast, cut off pal like real fast, you're cut off cigarettes, smoke, you're cut off Chanel number seven that nobody likes, you know, Sure, Um, that's uh yeah,

that's a pretty pretty good way to put it. I mean, and it's an ancient, ancient reflex too. I mean basically, all mammals at least sneeze, some more than others. I didn't realize this, but apparently iguanas um sneeze the most because it's part of their digestion. Yeah. And then I don't know what it's technically called, but you know when dogs do what it's called the reverse knees. Yeah, Momo has that bad. It's so scary, it is, it is.

And we finally got her checked out out and um, they verified she doesn't have a collapse trachia, which is when it really is threatening. It's just something to do with her nasal passages. Bracky a ceflick. Have you ever had a dog that that has that? I mean I've I've never had a dog that didn't do it occasionally. Um, but Niko, I feel like goes and it's not often, but it's it's like a you know, it's like can be prolonged like for like a minute, and it just

seems like are you about to die? Yeah, it's terrible, it's really bad. I think you're just supposed to leave them alone. Too, right, just let him do it. Um, No, we help her out. We'll we'll rub her throat um, just kind of stroke it. It seems to help. Uh. And then sometimes we'll just lightly plug her nostrils to kind of give her like a hitch to it, and that that frequently cures it too sometimes though. Yeah, she

just has to work it out. But she gets it every time she gets excited, and she gets excited a lot, so it's sad for her. Yeah, But it's really not a sneeze, uh, actually, because a sneeze is when you were you're trying to get something out of your nose, and that nose is it's a pretty amazing little system. It's uh, it's an amazing filtration system. How it's designed with those narrow nasal passages. It's not like we have

these big face holes like that. They're narrow for a very good reason, and that is to create turbulence inside your nasal passages. And you know that turbulence shoves all that air that you're inhaling to the sides of your nasal passages, the nasal mucosa, and that's got tiny little hairs called cilia and the sillia mainly is sort of like a pre doorman, just saying like, yeah, your I D S good. Why don't we just move you to the back of the throat and we'll flush you out

that way. But if it's too much, that's when you need to call him the big bouncer to initiate that sneeze response. Yeah, sometimes they're just like, no, I'm staying here, I'm not leaving. You can't kick me out. I hate the back of the throat. Super drunk. Yeah, yeah, so I didn't realize that, But it makes sense that we swallow a lot of the particles that we inhale through

our nose, which is gross but effective. We poop it out eventually, right, But yeah, if they get if they get stuck in the nose, then they do something magical, almost as magical as soap. But um, when it's when they're sticking to the sides and they're they're not going anywhere,

it's clear they're not going where. They actually like irritate some specialized cells that are in that nasal mucosa mast cells and uh erie nfls I think, But basically they're they're there to look out for little particles that decide they don't want to leave. And when those things get irritated, they release histamines which trigger this reaction like an allergic reaction, basically where your nose is running and um. They also simultaneously start sending signals to your brain saying, hey, we

we got one. We need some help. Yeah. And I know we talked about this a little bit with I know, the pollen episode and I feel like we did another allergy centric one but I can't remember. But the whole thing takes about a second for the single sneeze. Uh. And you know it's gonna send that message, like you said, that chemical message to the sneeze center of the brain,

which is in the lateral medulla. And uh, you know, the lateral medula gets like everything in the brain, it gets at signal and says, you know, all I gotta all I gotta do is react fast whenever the body tells me to do something, and in this case, it's to jet out whatever is in the nose as fast as possible. Right. So, And I was looking this up.

If you want to get super clinical, if you're the kind of person who uses words like stern mutation instead of sneezing, there's actually something called an afferent phase and an efferent phase and an afferent phases when you get ready to sneeze, like your your nerves have been um tickled and are triggered and are itching, and they're sending messages to your brain uh in your sneeze center. And then that the efferent phases, when your sneeze center goes okay,

it's go time. And that's actually pretty interesting stuff. And the way that that happens is basically, from what I can tell, through a system of nerves olfactory nerve uh ethmoidal nerve just a terrible word. And then um, your triedgeminal nerve, which is basically responsible for most of the sensation in your face and your ability to bite and chew.

And when these nerves spring into action, they hit that message or the sneezing center in your brain, and your sneezing center sends it back over these this kind of same switchboard of nerves in your face and all this is happening and just you know, a very short amount of time. Yeah, I mean, like I said, the whole thing takes place in less than a second. Um, and it's got to reach you know, in order for it to reach that sneeze center, it's got to be past

a certain threshold of irritation basically. Uh. And once it does reach that irra irritable point, which of which there's no going back. He's had too much to drink. Everybody in the bar knows it. That's when it finally sends uh, that impulse down through the head and neck to initiate that response. That involves a lot of muscle groups. Uh. You know, if you when you sneeze, it's a and especially with some people, can be a pretty violent um

action for the body. Yeah. Like if you stop and take stock of what you're doing right, then you might find that you're hunched over. One of your legs is in the air, like, your knees kind of pulled up. Um you you your face is all scrunched up, your neck is tight. Uh. There's a lot of muscles involved in the reason why is because you're taking in a bunch of air and then you're expelling a bunch of air with a lot of force to to get that

thing that won't leave out of your nose. Yeah, like you can and I've seen professional athletes that have been sidelined from sneezing h Uh. If you've got a bad back or something like, it can it can really hurt. Luckily, I don't have back problems, but occasionally I have, and a sneeze can really tweak it to where you're like, that's when you know you're an old man territory. You have a sneeze and you're like, hold on, I can't get up. Yeah, I'm gonna have to lay down this weekend.

But your abdomen, your chest, your diaphragm, uh, your vocal chords. You know you mentioned that you take that deep inhalation, that's that like right before you go, and that builds up a lot of pressure in your chest. And that happens because your vocal cords just initially clamp shut, right Yeah, So you're sucking in a bunch of air holding it, and so the pressure is building in your thorax um and then when you release it, your your vocal cord

openings open up to allow the air out. But then also your your diaphragm is pushing that air out really violently, so that it's going out in your mouth and your nose. I saw about a hundred miles an hour is the the speed that that can hit yeah, easily, um, around a hundred miles an hour. That is crazy to think about your eyes closed. But you know, we can go ahead and to spell the the old myth that, um, you can pop your eyes out if you keep your

eyes open during a sneeze, right, Yeah, not true. And apparently there are some people who do keep their eyes open when they sneeze, and they show quite clearly that your eyes don't pop out. That's just that's just would be impossible. Plus they usually close anyway, just shatically. Yeah. There, it's a very small group of people who sneeze with their eyes open. Most people just it's like involuntary. Um, it's part of the involuntary process of sneezing. I don't

know if we said that or not. Sneezing is an involuntary reaction to an external stimuli in your nose. Yeah, like you can't. I mean, you can try and trigger a sneeze, and we'll talk about certain things that can trigger a sneeze, but you definitely can't make yourself sneeze like full stop. Yeah no, no, I mean, yeah, there's funny things you can do to make yourself sneeze, like you're saying, but there are things you can do to

keep yourself from sneezing. Whether you want to or not is a different question, because you know, sneezing can feel pretty good if you don't throw your back out. All right, Well, we'll talk about my sneeze pattern later. I know I've talked about it before, but okay, I find it fascinating you you accidentally um, tap out, drink your ovaltine and morse code to your sneezes. Is that your thing? Very nice? Thanks?

Should we take a break. Let's take a break, Chuck, and then we'll come back and talk more about sneezing, Josh and Shock. So well, now we're on the road, driving in your truck. Want to learn a thing or two from Josh Camp Chuck. It's stuff you should know. All right, hey man, before we get back into it too far, I realized I didn't give a shout out to the guy who gave me the idea for this episode. Yeah,

Dr Todd g sneeze a lot um No. One of my neighbor friends, Wesley Uh was like, hey man, he actually listens and he's like, hey man, have you guys ever done one on sneezing? And I'm like sure, of course we have. It's like, oh, because if you haven't, you know, you really should. That's a great one. And I went back and looked into my astoundment. We had never done one on sneezing, Like never. I just can't believe that that wasn't like one of the first ten.

You know, Yeah, that seems like it would be an early stuff you should know for sure, and like it. It kind of feels like one of those right now as we're doing it. But um, you know, my neighbors think of unemployed. It's great. Yeah, but hats off to West for coming up with that one. Thanks Wes. Yeah, I leave Josh alone. He's one. He's the one that we got the the Love your Mama dot com stuff for and he's like halfway done with our room spray. We need some more because we're using it so fast,

and you're you're the pusherman. Yeah. I was like, first of one's on me, the next you're gonna cost you. Yeah, I don't correct my neighbors. They think I'm I'm down on my luck, so that's all good, Yeah, opinion, No, that's definitely the way to go. He's very nosy, so he um he found out I had to finally just stop lying, Oh, that's good stuff. So we're we're back

to sneezing. We're talking sneezing and UM. One of the things we mentioned was the sneezing center, which is this, up until not too many years ago, a theoretical part of the brain that um causes us to sneeze, that coordinates this involuntary response because you're not like your brain is not consciously saying like, okay, now, diaphragm, expel the air, like this is all like we said, involuntary um that

every time you wanted to sneeze, right, expel air. UM. So it makes sense that there would be a region that was responsible for this. And because we've already we'd already seen it in cats. Don't ask how we knew where it is in cats, but in cats it's in the medulla, and so it was hypothesized that it was in the lateral medulla in humans too. And finally, I think around two thousand five, there's basically incontrovertible evidence that

came in the form of this fisherman. I believe he might have been Spanish UM who had the sneezing fit one day of like about twenty really violent sneezes in a few minutes, and then all of a sudden he stops sneezing and couldn't walk right like he his gait

was affected, almost like he had a stroke. And apparently either he caused a lesion on his lateral medulla from the sneezing, or that violent sneezing was like an initial symptom of a lesion, kind of like here's your last sneeze as ever, And he went to the doctor and they started testing them, and they would do things like put cap sasan in his nose, like red hot chili pepper in his nose, which makes everybody sneeze. It's like a universal um stern to Tori, right, makes everyone sneeze,

And it wouldn't make this guy sneeze. It would burn his nose and it would make his nose running, but it wouldn't make him sneeze. On the other side, it would make him sneeze the other nostril, but not the not the right, I think. And so they found this lesion on his lateral medula, and they said, sneezing center, welcome to our understanding. At such a bad red hut Chili Pepper's joke that is sat on through the whole spield. That's a very grown up of you. Should I say it? Sure?

Whoever said we were grown ups? I was just thinking the doctor would did the capsasan and ask him how he feels, and he'd say, well, I don't know. Sometimes I feel like I don't have a partner. That's pretty good, you know, than fight like a brave. I don't know. I'm trying to think of Chili Pepper songs. What if the doctor came in wearing nothing but one of those reflector headbands in a sock on his penis. I saw that coming and that was it. Oh, that'd be great

that that. You know, you got the right doctor. Yeah, you do the party duck. So things that can make you sneeze. I know you kind of rattle off some jokes about perfume and smoke earlier. Oh I wasn't joking, But those are all realities. That the most common cause of sneeze is and that the collective term is rhinitis r H I and I T I S. And that is just your sort of standard inflammation and swelling of your mucous membrane when you got allergies when pollens in

the air, when you have a cold. But they are all kinds of other things that can cause a sneeze too, that are all different types of rhinitis. Yeah, speaking of rhinitis too, I ran across a term. This the clinical term for a running nose is rhin a rhea. Yeah didn't that crody Like that makes it at least twelve or fifteen times worse than running nose, you know. Yeah, So there's um occupational rhinitis, which is basically when stuff

you're working around makes you sneeze or irritate your nose. Um, things like cleaning supplies or you know, flower I saw was a pretty common occupational rhinitis. Uh, sternitatory or sternitative, depending on your preference. Um. Cigarette smoke, if you're work in a place where they let you smoke, like maybe a cigarette factory, although I heard that they don't allow smoking inside some cigarette factories now in like North Carolina.

Isn't that just the end all be all? You think they would allow you to do that while you're working. They used to up until very recently. Oh yeah, I have the impression you can just puck one off the line and light it up. Wow, I guess if you're smoker, that's a big perk. It is. But then now they're like no smoking inside, which leads you to the follow up question why why would what very dangerous you dummy? Uh,

let me see. You've also got the hormonal rhinitis, which is women might experience that when they have high estrogen levels. Maybe if you're pregnant, or you're on the pill, or you're going through puberty, you might have some sort of run on sneezing episodes. Sure, Um, there's drug induced rhinitis. There's certain drugs that are have been identified. Um, what do you say the hippis kun right, Yeah, mushrooms will make you sneeze. Um. Apparently I'm guessing that I didn't

see this anywhere, but this is an educated guest. Tell me if you think it sounds convincing. Um, those drugs probably stimulate your masts cells to release histamines, and that that just basically almost like a phantom um allergen. Okay, that's I'm going with. But apparently end SAIDs beta blockers and some anti hypertensive drugs are the ones that are known.

Um drug induced rynitis. Stern tutores. Uh. If you are of advanced age, you might have what's called geri attic rhye rhinitis, which is that's when those uh submucoastal glands atrophy, and that means your nose can get really irritated and you might sneeze a lot. Right. Um. That is very sad to me if you think about it, because there's not much that can be done. I'm sure you're there's there. You just put like maybe vaseline or something in your nose.

That's got to be the cure for that. But that's just that because it's like your your little bodies, you know, running down. We should have a cure for that. Yeah, Like our medicine is not far enough along in my opinion, for too for this to be. It's kind of a disappointing everybody, am I Right? Yeah? So we've talked before, Chuck multiple times about photic sneezing, which I am a photo sneezer, and I don't remember if you are or not. I feel like I have, but I don't. It's not

like roundly something that happens to me. I don't think. So, Okay, I am a photo sneezer more than I'm a native born Toledo and even maybe they're tied. So how does it get you? Like, any time you like turn on a light, very rarely light, it's almost always sunlight, and

I think it's just because the intensity of it. But yeah, like if I walk out, say, like if I go see a movie in the middle of the day because it's a slacker and come out and then nice and I come out and it's very sunny, it is guaranteed three sneezes in a row? Is that every usual pattern? Yeah? Usually? And I looked into that, like why do we sneeze multiple times? Apparently there's a very simple answer for it, and that's that your your brain has to turn mean

that that the irritant hasn't been ejected yet. But with photo sneezing, it's it's almost like it's mistaken identity, right. Yeah. I actually did see some other things too about the patterns, because that's always fascinated me because I always sneeze in threes. And um, I did see where sometime some places said that just once isn't enough, so it's like a setup. Get it to the front of your nose and then it get out. But I also saw where it could

be genetic. Yeah, like that you inherit a sneeze pattern, and that like double sneezers beget to double sneezers. It makes sense because there are like photos. Sneezing is one of a couple ways that you can inherit a genetic sneezing traits, So that would make sense. Yeah, that's right. Photo. I'm sorry, photic sneeze reflexes passed on by autosomal dominant inheritance. And it's and I love this, uh this acronym because this is one of those reverse engineered ones that we

like so much. Do you like this one? I like this one. I hated the other one. Yeah, man, with a passion like I wouldn't even I wasn't gonna bring that one up to be Okay, we'll just pass it by and let everybody wonder for the rest of their lives. But autosamial dominant compelling helio up uphthalmic outburst syndrome at you, it's a little rough, it is. I mean, there's a whole d, a whole dominant in there that's missing. But okay, fine,

we'll go We'll go with that. But that's the that is a term for photo sneezing that was um coined at some some point by Someone's right for acronyms is when they just sneak a word in there and don't use it for a letter. Yeah, it's lazy, although I mean I get where they were coming from. You don't want to be ad chew. It's like why even why even do it? But but you got to figure it out, you know, I mean, just take dominant out, just go with autosomal. You know. Yeah, no one who would know.

I wouldn't have noticed. So um you were saying, Uh, was that it for the patterns and sneezing patterns. Yeah, I mean they're just a couple of theories, either hereditary or that it just takes that much. But I'm not sure. I just don't know if I buy that for myself because it's always threes and it's not like I have a weak sneeze, so it takes three. I don't know if it feels ingrained somehow, Yeah, like if you only do two, you notice and it does it feel incomplete?

It does, but it that almost never happens. Occasionally I'll do a forebanger, but I don't I don't know that I ever sneeze once or twice, it's almost always three. Yeah, And speaking of incomplete, if you actually go if you experience the afferent phase, but the efferent phase isn't triggered,

but it's enough to drive you nuts. Um, there's things you can do, and one of those things that's recommended is to look at a bright light er look kind of don't look directly at this on, but look towards the sun um and that should help jump start that

efferent phase. The second part where the actual sneeze takes place, Okay, that makes sense, But they think what's going on is that there's a crossover between um, the sneeze reflex arc and the pupillary light reflex arc, which basically is one nerve becoming so um stimulated that it it um it stimulates by proxy the the other nerve, the sneeze nerve.

So you're getting so overloaded with bright light when you see that sunlight that it it accidentally jumps on over to your sneeze reflection as well and makes you sneeze. It's like, are you getting all this light? Are you getting get a load of this? And I think they've landed on about between twenty. Generally people have this photic sneeze reflex, right, So that's I mean, that's pretty substantial. There are some other, like small all identity groups of

sneezers that are far smaller than that. Um. Apparently there are people who, um, there's a four families, not one in four people, four families, as far as anyone knows, who have something called um snatiation, which is where you if they eat too much and they feel overly full, it will trigger a sneezing attack. Yeah, I would call that rare. Yeah, four families for sure, and we're just gonna pass right on by, right chuck uh yes, acronym um.

Getting back to the photo sneezing though, they think it also could be a holdover and an evolutionary advantage from when we were little babies. Because little babies don't have they can't blow their nose. They don't know what that even is, so the only um they can't pick their nose. They can't they can't use any implement at all to clear out their nose except the sneeze. They rely on the sneeze to get that mucus out, or of course parents who will suck that stuff out through it a

little device, yeah, which is no fun but necessary. Or you hold them on their side and you blow in their ear usually clears up in noo. But I should probably just go ahead and say I don't do that. That was a joke. You can whisper sweet nothings, sure, but don't Yeah, don't do that. Um. But babies are are pretty sensitive to that photoclight reflex, and they think that maybe a reason that basically we that's just sort of a holdover from when we were babies. It makes sense.

It also makes sense to me that babies might have um more active or kind of raw or nerve pathways, So maybe they're just more sensitive to that that jump over that crossover. Maybe UM plucking nose hairs that ever happened to you every time? So it doesn't make me sneeze, but it makes my eyes water like I've just seen every UM long distance commercial from the nineties all at once. Yeah. And it's interesting because those you talked earlier about the

trigeminal nerves that are all through the face. I think it's just all related. Like you pluck, you could pluck an eyebrow and it could make you sneeze and your eyes are watering, and that's part of your face. Like it's just all sort of one big nerve bundle that's all interrelated, and it could any of those could trigger either watering of eyes or or definitely sneezing. Even if you like pluck a hair out of your head, that

could do it. That's never happened to me. But my nose hair and my eyebrow hair, oh man, my eyes will start watering. It's not a pleasant experience for sure. I've never plucked an eyebrow hair. Oh. Every once in a while I'll get one. Um, that's a big, fat, long goat hair. It's just suddenly comes up overnight. I've seen I've got those two. Okay, well I pluck those. Just trim those, you know, is um, maybe I should

trim them. That's a good idea. Um. But have you ever noticed if you get one and there's almost invariably one on the other side too, like they come up in pairs. Has does that happen to you? I have not noticed that when you pull on one, does the other one get shorter? That that was wonderful, that'd be great. Yeah, it's like pulling that spaghetti through your nose. And out your mouth. Don't do that either, Can you do that? Uh? No, I've never tried to do I've never tried either. I

don't want to. Um. There's also a group of people who sneeze when they become sexually aroused. Yeah, that's the thing apparently, or if your orgasm, like after your orgasm, it could trigger a sneezing fit. Yeah, it's an apparently a bigger group than than you would expect. Some researcher went around the internet chat rooms and said, hey, does anybody sneeze when they become aroused or when they have

an orgasm? And she found seventeen people who sneeze from sexual ideation and three who sneeze from orgasm, which is that is ay more than I would expect from just going around on internet chat rooms and asking people, you know. And also, we should point out way not scientific, No, not at all, but yeah, anecdotally it's still impressive. But I read an explanation for this. It's a terrible explanation, but it's an explanation by the Journal of the Association

of Physicians of India. It's an Indian uh journal. Coincidentally enough, they suggest that it's because the nose contains erectile tissue, which it does. Which erectile tissues just tissue that can become larger engorged by blood flow. And yes, you have erectile tissue and your genitalia. Um, yes you have it in your nose, but they're not they're not in any way related as far as anyone's ever even thought, aside from the people in this journal. And that the most

bizarre thing you've ever heard. It's pretty bizarre. Like your nose is becoming aroused, is basically what they're saying. And so you sneeze fantastic. Uh. There's also intractable sneezing or psychogenic, and that is something that's almost exclusive to young women, um, girls, adolescents basically going through puberty. And these are girls who may not suffer from allergies, they're not sick with a cold or anything, but can go in these big sneezing binges for days and days at a time. Yes, and

apparently the world, world, the world, oh my goodness. The world record holder is a girl named Donna Griffiths who was twelve when she started. She started in nineteen eighty one January of nine eight one, and her sneezing fit ended nine hundred and seventy seven days later in September of nineteen eighty three. I remember hearing about this one and as it I mean as it went on, I

was way too young for this. But you know, had I had I been more aware, I would have felt very bad for this girl, um, because as it went on, she could if she sneezed once in a day, it was considered part of the record, and I think that that was kind of how it was towards the end. But that first year sounds like a bear. Yeah, a million sneezes in the first three d and sixty five days, which is basically a sneeze a minute on average. And chuck an it's impossible to sneeze in your sleep. You

cannot sneeze in your sleep. If you sneeze while you're sleeping, you wake up to sneeze. Your brain just isn't functioning correctly to sneeze while you're sleeping. So that means this girl was averaging a sneeze a minute, um, just during waking hours, but a sneeze a minute over twenty four hours compressed into say ten or twelve hours that she was awake that day or would she wake herself up sneezing.

I don't know if. If that's the case, then she had a really, really rough year because she was sneezing every minute and not getting any sleep. Yeah, I mean it's disruptive no matter what, no one. I mean, you can't hold on a job if you're sneezing every minute. Well, luckily she was twelve, and this is after child labor laws were passed. I'm hoping she did have that cigarette factory. That's right. She has nimble little fingers for sorting cigarettes. Perfect.

Should we take another break, Yeah, I think so. All right, we'll talk about these the traveling Droplets right after this great band Josh and Shock. Well, now we're on the road, driving in your truck. Want to learn a thing or two from Josh Damp Chuck. It's stuff you should know, all right? All right, so this is pretty relevant now. And I know and I think this was put together before. I feel like we've been sitting on this one. Was

this before coronavirus? No? I think it was during? Was during? Ok? And this is a Dave helped us out. Dave Russ helped us out with this one. Yeah, so and uh and I think we've all seen these videos by now, um with everything that's going on. But in two thousand sixteen and a researcher from m I T named Lydia. Uh oh boy, goodness me Bubia sure bariba, I'm going with buru buruba. It is. There's a couple of sounds

in there that follow one another. It makes it very difficult. Yeah, whenever you pack three vowels in a row, it's always sort of a dealer's choice. So she published some SloMo two thousand frame per second uh film images of people sneezing and what that looks like. That's where we get and other people have done this too, and and measured the sneeze. But that's one place where we get the hundred miles per hour stat oh from that study. Yeah,

and other places. I mean that's pretty common knowledge now. But um up Tott. You can blow a sneeze. It can stay suspended in the air for a few minutes. And they likened it too, if you would take a bucket of paint and just throw the paint out out of the can into the air sort of as how

a sneeze works. It's as they call it, sheets of fluids, and you know, you've got these big, big hunks of mucus and saliva that just sort of come out together and then break apart little by little until you get to the fine mists that sort of can hang in the air. Yeah, it starts as a clump and then turns into ropey filaments and then into increasingly smaller particles. And those really small particles the air sulized stuff. That's

the scary stuff. I saw a Bristol study that said, and this wasn't necessarily coronavirus, but that contagious germs can stay in the air, suspended in the air for weeks possibly. Um, that would have to be a very hardy contagious virus or bacteria with the air flow, yeah, to just sit there. But um, that the twenty seven feet which is kind of common knowledge these days in the era of coronavirus, that your sneeze can can project those particles up to

like twenty seven ft. There's little pockets of gas and turbulence that are in a in a room, even a room that seems still but certainly one that has like the a c on or air flowing through it, and those little particles can hitch rides on those pockets and travel. Um, I saw two hundred times further than you expel them with just your sneeze. So you know what prevents that covering yourself, your mouth and your nose when you sneeze,

and or wearing a mask. Yeah, I mean they teach I mean, this has nothing to do with coronavirus, but it's especially important. But they teach little kids from the moment they can even understand things in preschool to always sneeze into your elbow and cough into your elbow because that's something that kids can you know, you can't always get to a tissue, which is what they say is sort of the best thing to do. But that elbow

is pretty good. Uh, it's a pretty good system. I think it's really cute to see a little kid do that too, Yeah, because they're doing the right thing. It's it's uh, it is adorable. I agree. Um, but yeah, the the ideal is to to sneeze into a tissue. Um, throw your tissue away and wash your hands thoroughly. That's what you're supposed to do after you sneeze every time, every single time, every single time. And I don't sneeze a lot. Emily sneeze is a lot. Oh yeah, yeah,

because she's got the allergies. Oh yeah, she's got a lifelong, persistent tickle in her nose. It's terrible. Does she have um, what's it called the kind of sneezing where it's oh, psychogenic, intractable sneezing. Well, no, because she's not, she's not thirteen man. No, it's just allergy related. But lots of sneezing. Uh, when it's when it's really bad, it's it's it's pretty tough to be around, not to not tough for me, but

you know, right right yeah stop. Um. So that I did look up to find out where we stood as far as knowledge on sneezing and um contagion outdoors goes. And from what I can tell, there was some study that was done by some engineers that sprayed an aerosol can running walking and then on a bike, and the results showed that the stuff spreads really far and wide. But they didn't take into account a lot of different things,

a lot of different factors. So that if you are outdoors, as long as somebody doesn't sneeze at you basically in your face or in your direction within you know, twenty or thirty feet um directly toward you. You're probably not going to catch enough of a viral load of something like coronavirus to become sick from it. Um, especially if

you're not in a crowded group. If you're just walking outside and somebody else is walking, you know, fifteen ft ahead of you and they're just breathing and they're on the other side of the street, you're probably going to be fine just because that stuff is gonna dissipate so much because of all the factors, the environmental factors that exist outdoors rather as opposed to indoors. Indoors is a

totally different ballgame. Outdoors, you're much safer. Yeah, I mean I haven't, uh, I haven't been around a human that sneezed, aside from my wife and you know, four or five months, like I would, even when I've gone to the store and like I'm on the lookout for that stuff. Oh yeah, and um, like I think we all are. But I haven't even been in a store, like on an aisle where someone's like sneezed, because I would and probably unreasonably, you know, freak out a little bit. Sure, I think

you're allowed to yell at that person. But I haven't even seen anyone been around anyone that sneezed. Uh, so that's been a comfort. Yeah, you mean you me went to the store and came back and said, somebody sneezed twice in the whole store. Just started looking around like where that come from. Yeah, it's weird. Huh. Yeah. Yeah, there's basically like a stampede or something to get away from that thing. It's it is. It's a weird, weird time to be alive. We're all going to be very

very weird even after things go back to normal. I think, yeah, you know it's gonna I know I will be. Yeah. So should we talk a little bit about a culture and you know, sort of what people say all around the world. I know here in America it's sort of customed to say God bless you or bless you, uh

and that. You know. There's some different explanations, but um one of them that seems to hold water I think dates back to the Middle Ages with the Black Plague, when Pope Gregory seven basically said, hey, everyone, you know, things are pretty bad. We should just we should say God bless you if someone is sneezing because they might

be dying. Yeah, which is a from what I saw, A big departure from um earlier Christian teachings which taught people to just totally ignore these or say God is dead, which I right, which I find very weird, Like why would you teach people to ignore sneezes? I didn't get that. But I found this really awesome article called Romance and Tragedy of Sneezing by Dr Wilson D. Wallace in Scientific Monthly from nineteen nine, and he cited that that earlier

Christians were like just ignored it, just pretend it didn't happen. Yeah, i'm a i'm a i'm ana. Bless you guy. Um, and don't do the gazoom tight or salute which is Spanish to your health, that kind of thing. It's also a toast, Yeah I say that. I don't. I don't say that ever. Really. Sometimes I'll say it when I toast, but it's been I don't know. I don't remember what I did it with anyone anymore, you know, it's I

don't I forgot to deal with people. I always raise my glass and say it's time to get toe up from the flow up, I say, made Jupiter bless you, right. I saw another one from the Greeks too. I love that one. Um, live zeus, preserve you. I think you and I should bring back both of those. That's fantastic. Can't you imagine everyone in greased just like being like, don't sneeze, don't sneeze? If everyone's all twitchy and shaky

from people yelling that at them. Yeah, I mean it's weird too because it's a it's a very kind thing to do to a stranger. It's uh, this one, um, I guess Dave just says an academic. But they called it a micro affection, which is nice. You know. It's just a little quick, nice thing to say to a stranger. If and I'll always do it. We've we've done it during our live shows when someone sneezes. It's uh, and not to be funny, it gets a laugh, but it's just sort of a it's almost like an involuntary micro

affection I think for most you know, non monsters for sure. Yeah, where people just kind of have a brief connection, right and you know they don't know each other. But now it's like you're a human being. What is it now? Well, just bless you and get pleased, get very far away from again, bless you over there. Um. So there's also a very common understanding that people thought that a demon was trying to get in or your soul was trying to get out. And I kept seeing like other cultures

or old ancient cultures that kind of thing. The closest one I could find that seemed like that was um in Persia. Um zoro asters believed that your body was fighting off a fiend that had invaded, like an invading demon or spirit, and that a sneeze was basically your body signaling that it had been victorious in fighting this fiend and getting this fiend out, and that that that deserved a prayer, and that if you ever heard somebody sneeze, you would say the same prayer with him. I couldn't

find what prayer though. Yeah, it seems to be a good luck thing, and a lot of cultures throughout the years, according to the Talmud, it's a good omen if you sneeze when you're praying. Uh. In China and Japan, if you sneeze, it means someone's sort of like your ears are burning, someone's talking about you, and one sneeze means they're saying nice things to two means they're spreading gossip. I don't know what they would think about me with

my three. Three means you die, right? What would three mean? I don't know. I mean, because there's only two ways people can talk about you, right, they might be saying something like Chuck has a beard. Okay, you know that's as neutral as it gets, exactly. Um. So there's there's folklore, and then there's what we think is true, which is a kind of folklore, but it's actually it's just folklore to urban legends. Is what we call them our old

wives tales. And we talked about one where that your your eyes will pop out of your head if you sneeze with your eyes open. We debunked that one pretty clearly, I think, don't you can't do it? Um. And then there's some other ones too. There's one that you told me about that I had no idea until she said this, But apparently some people believe that you basically die for a second while you're sneezing, like your body just shuts down, including your heart, and that you're technically dead for that

half second while the sneeze is going on it. I had never heard that before until a couple of days ago, and um yeah, I looked it up and it's a thing. But no, it's that's not at all true. Like your heart rhythm might actually change and the volume of blood in your heart might decrease or increase because of the pressure of the air in your chest or the release of pressure, but the electrical activity remains the same, and that's the key to whether your hearts you know, alive

or not. Yeah, yeah, your heart does not stop. No, that's like playground stuff, it is. I thought it was very cute. What about sneezing after sex preventing pregnancy? Did you see this one? Well, I mean, what are you sneezing out of? Right? So? I mean that like, that's the idea that if you sneeze, you're expelling um well, there's really no other way to put its semen, and that that would keep you from getting pregnant. Wow, it seems a little ridic Yeah, that's another playground thing, I guess.

So what's what playground have you been hanging out? Pretty advanced playground at Uh? You got anything else? Oh, I've got one more thing, Chuck, you anything else, I got nothing else. In two thousand and sixteen or eighteen, a man in Lester in the UK ruptured his throat from trying to stifle a sneeze. The pressure was so great

it broke open his throat. Wow. Yeah, internally didn't break through the skin, but his his his throat internally was up because that's what I pictured, like a throat explosion. It just blew his head completely off, like that guy in Scanners. Well like I guess that's it for sneezing everybody. Hope you enjoyed it. Thanks again to West for the idea. And since I said that, it's time for listener mail,

we call this Atlanta, Texas. Hey guys, my name's ben Ley, local atlantin Georgia and my life and are a huge longtime fans. In your recent episode on Pirate Radio, y'all briefly brought up Radio Atlanta, which was named after Atlanta, Texas. Uh, and you joke that no one knew that town exists, even the people that live there. And that's pretty much true. My family is originally from Atlanta, Texas. It's pretty small,

just about five thousand residents, so it's totally understandable. I was born in Texarkana, Texas, not too far from there, which is basically famous for being in the Smoky in the Bandit movie. I thought that was the town that dreaded Sundown too, wasn't it. M I don't know about that. I definitely remember from Smoking in the Bandit because they're driving that beer from Texarkana to Atlanta, and uh, Benjamin here says, I don't know why they didn't do Atlanta

to Atlanta. Wasted opportunity, it really is. It sounds like Benjamin moved from Atlanta to Atlanta though, huh maybe kinda. I mean he's in Atlanta right. He teaches at Georgia State. That's pretty awesome. Hey, hats off to you for teaching these days, Benjamin. Yeah, he says, there's a lot of towns in Texas, oh name that are also Georgian names. There's an Athens, Texas at Douglasville, Columbus, Dallas, Georgia in Texas. And he said there's even a Georgia, Texas. Well. That's

just confusing. And he said, thanks for all the great stuff, and that is from Benjamin Boden Lee. Thanks a lot. Benjamin Boden Lee, that was a great email. We appreciate it. Any email at references smoking in the Bandit we're all right with Well. If you want to email us about Smoking the Bandit or anything else we'd love to hear from you, you can send it to Stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a

production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listened to your favorite shows.