Myth: Your bodily functions including your heart stop when
you sneeze
Don't Stop Sneezing
Why do we sneeze, anyway? Generally because a physical
irritant has entered the nasal passage, either in the form
of an odor, or a substance like pollen. Whatever the cause,
when the irritant reaches a certain level, nerve endings
send signals to the brain, which in turn sends out a signal
to the chest. The muscles there are told to contract,
causing a spasm in the pharynx, which is the main passageway
between the nasal passages and chest.
The result is an explosion of air, that has actually been
clocked at up to 100mph. The fact that it is so powerful,
has lead people to erroneously believe that other bodily
systems actually stop during the millisecond that a sneeze
takes, but this is not true.
What is true, are the dangers of trying to contain a sneeze.
That's not counting remedies like looking down or breathing
out, it's specifically related to things like pinching the
nose closed while sneezing.
Consider the force of the sneeze. Now think about where that
force goes when denied an exit. It is shot backwards into
such passages as the ear canals where there are delicate
membranes and bones. The percussion of a truncated sneeze
can do serious damage to tissue and structures within the
skull.
Not only that, but some people have actually severed their
tongues by biting through them through involuntary reflex
actions.
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