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Absolutely everyone sneezes. They may range from explosions of sound that cause your entire body to rock to cutesy little puffs that do little more than crinkle your nose, but everyone sneezes. Even our pets sneeze! Here are five interesting facts about how and why we all have these uncontrollable nasal expulsions.
There are a lot of reasons we sneeze, but most of them come down to an irritation of the nasal passages that tells our brain we need to clear our nose, dramatically! However, some other reasons we sneeze seem to have nothing to do with our nose at all. These include photic sneezing (sneezing due to bright lights), cold drafts, eyebrow plucking and more!
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A sneeze can occur for a variety of reasons, but what actually happens during a sneeze? Motor neurons in your nasal passage alert the brain via the trigeminal nerve. Your brain responds by contracting muscles in your diaphragm, pharynx, larynx, mouth, and face, causing your soft palate and uvula to depress and back of your tongue to rise. Then air is expelled from your lungs, exiting both your mouth and nose because the passage between them is only partially closed.
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People have come up with a lot of myths about sneezing. One myth is that you can’t sneeze with your eyes open, or that if you manage to keep your eyes open during a sneeze, your eyeballs will pop out. This is completely false, however, scientists (and the Mythbusters) have proven that you can keep your eyes open during a sneeze and nothing bad will happen to them.
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While it is possible to stop a sneeze (try pinching your nose or pressing your tongue to the top of your mouth), it isn’t a good idea to hold one in if you can’t stop it. Audiologists warn that holding in a sneeze can cause vertigo, rupture your eardrums and, in extreme cases, lead to hearing loss! Holding a sneeze can also hurt your diaphragm and rupture blood vessels in your eyes.
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Human beings are not the only animal that sneezes! All other mammals are known to sneeze, as are a few other non-mammalian vertebrates (chickens sneeze!). Other animals sneeze for a lot of the same reasons we do, but they also sometimes use sneezes to communicate or to show their mood or intentions.
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