How Sneezing Works

Summary

Stuff You Should Know – "How Sneezing Works"

Hosts: Josh Clark & Charles W. "Chuck" Bryant
Podcast: Stuff You Should Know (iHeartPodcasts)
Date: March 20, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into the biology, neurology, and cultural curiosities of sneezing—why we do it, how it works, and all the weird, gross, and fascinating facts surrounding this ancient reflex. Hosts Josh and Chuck pepper their conversation with jokes, personal anecdotes, and some truly memorable cultural rabbit holes.

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Key Discussion Points

The Biology & Mechanics of Sneezing

• Sternutation:

  • The technical term for sneezing is "sternutation," an old, rarely-used word (03:19).

    "If you're a scientist and you want to be a real stiff, you probably say sternutation. If you're a scientist that wants to be friends with people, you'll still probably say sneezing." — Chuck (03:38)

• Why We Sneeze:

  • Sneezing is an involuntary reflex mainly designed to eject unwanted particles from the nose. It’s an ancient and efficient system shared by many animals (05:09).

• Nasal Filtration System:

  • The nose is an impressive filtration system—narrow passages create turbulence, sending inhaled particles to the mucosal lining and then down the throat most of the time. When this system is overwhelmed, the sneeze reflex kicks in (06:43).

• How a Sneeze Works:

  • Afferent phase: Irritation (from things like pollen or dust) triggers nerves in the nasal mucosa, sending a signal to the "sneeze center" in the lateral medulla of the brain (09:25).
  • Efferent phase: The sneeze center returns the signal, activating facial and chest muscles to produce a powerful expulsion—air can reach speeds up to 100mph (12:22).

• Muscle Involvement:

  • Sneezing involves many body parts: diaphragm, abdomen, chest, vocal cords, even facial muscles (11:12).

• Myth Busting:

  • "You can’t pop your eyes out if you sneeze with them open" (13:13).
  • Sneezing is involuntary: You can’t really make yourself sneeze at will, but you can try to induce one with certain triggers (13:33).

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The Neuroscience of Sneezing

• Sneeze Center Location:
  • For years, scientists suspected the lateral medulla controlled sneezing. Decisive proof came from a fisherman who stopped sneezing after a lesion in that region—capsaicin (chili pepper) in his nose would burn, but not trigger sneezing (19:09).

  • “They found this lesion on his lateral medulla, and they said, sneezing center. Welcome to our understanding.” — Josh (20:43)

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Types and Triggers of Sneezing

• Types of Rhinitis:

  • Allergic, occupational (like flour dust), hormonal (pregnancy, puberty), drug-induced (NSAIDs, mushrooms), and geriatric (elderly with atrophied glands) (22:18, 24:26).

• Photic Sneeze Reflex ("ACHOO" syndrome):

  • About 23–25% of people sneeze in response to sunlight (photic sneezing). Genetically inherited, this is known as Autosomal Dominant Compelling Helio-Ophthalmic Outburst (ACHOO) syndrome (25:15, 27:24).

  • “I am a photic sneezer more than I'm a native born Toledoan even. Maybe they're tied.” — Josh (25:31)

  • Typical sneeze patterns (single, double, triple) can also be hereditary (26:40).

• Rare & Fascinating Triggers:

  • Sexual ideation/orgasm: Some people sneeze when aroused or after orgasm; about 20 reported to a researcher via online forums (33:46).
  • Full stomach ("seneciation"): Only four families are documented with this rare reflex where overeating triggers sneezing (30:07).
  • Nose hair plucking: Can cause sneezing or watery eyes due to facial nerve connections (32:05).

• Intractable (psychogenic) sneezing:

  • Mostly adolescent girls; some reported hundreds of sneezes a day for months or years.
  • Donna Griffiths sneezed for 977 days straight, averaging 1,000,000 sneezes in the first year (35:38).

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Sneezing, Contagion, and Public Health

• Expulsion Force and Distance:

  • Slow-motion studies show sneezes can eject particles up to 25–27 feet, with finer aerosols lingering in the air for minutes, or even longer in rare lab conditions (41:22).

  • “If you would take a bucket of paint and just throw the paint out of the can into the air, sort of is how a sneeze works.” — Chuck (41:46)

• How it Spreads Germs:

  • Airflow in the room, turbulence, and aerosols mean sneezes can go much farther than a simple cough (43:24).
  • Best hygiene: sneeze into tissues or your elbow, wash your hands (43:32).

• COVID Context:

  • Outdoors, risk from sneezed particles is much lower compared to indoors due to quick dispersion (45:59).

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Sneezing in Culture & Folklore

• "Bless you" and Global Variants:

  • Origin in the Black Plague: Pope Gregory VII may have encouraged “God bless you” to protect people believed to be in mortal danger (47:08).
  • Earlier Christians were told to ignore sneezes entirely (47:42).
  • Many languages use blessings or good luck phrases; the Greeks said, “May Zeus preserve you” (48:45).

• Other Beliefs:

  • In China/Japan, sneezing means someone is talking about you (50:50).
  • Folktales: sneezing means your soul escapes or a demon invades—Zoroastrians saw sneezing as victory over evil (49:51).
  • Urban legends debunked:
    • Your eyes won’t pop out if you keep them open while sneezing (51:13).
    • Your heart does not stop when you sneeze (52:00).
    • Sneezing after sex does not prevent pregnancy (52:38).
    • Suppressing sneezes can be dangerous—one man ruptured his throat trying (53:09).

    • “The pressure was so great, it broke open his throat.” — Josh (53:20)

• Micro-Affections:

  • Saying “bless you” to strangers is a “micro affection,” a tiny moment of kindness promoted in many cultures (49:06).

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Notable Quotes and Moments

• On the elegance of sneezing:

  “It’s just a very efficient system that the human body has worked out…to allow your nose and your brain to act as bouncers and just say, get out of my body fast. You’re cut off, pal.” — Chuck (04:33)

• On the world’s longest sneezing fit:

  “A million sneezes in the first 365 days…a sneeze a minute over 24 hours, compressed into, say, 10 or 12 hours that she was awake that day.” — Josh (36:00)

• On sneeze hygiene during the pandemic:

  “But yeah, the ideal is to sneeze into a tissue, 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.” — Josh (44:07)

• On “bless you” as a micro-affection:

  “It’s almost like an involuntary micro affection, I think for most, you know, non-monsters for sure.” — Chuck (49:06)

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• 03:19 – Introduction of "sternutation" and efficient nose filtration
• 09:25 – Neural phases and sneeze reflex explained
• 12:22 – Muscle groups involved; how forceful a sneeze can be
• 13:13 – Mythbusting: Can you keep your eyes open while sneezing?
• 19:09 – The sneeze center, neuroscience, and the "fisherman case"
• 22:18 – Triggers: rhinitis, allergens, occupational/hormonal factors
• 25:15 – Photic sneeze reflex, genetics & “ACHOO” syndrome
• 30:07 – Rare sneezing triggers: full stomach, arousal, etc.
• 35:38 – Psychogenic/intractable sneezing and record holders
• 41:22 – Droplet speed, distance, and slow-motion research
• 43:32 – Proper sneeze hygiene & public health
• 47:08 – “Bless you!” across world cultures, origins, and micro-affection
• 49:51 – Folklore: demons, souls, Persian & other cultural beliefs
• 51:13, 52:00 – Urban legends: eyes popping, heart stopping
• 53:09 – Danger of stifling sneezes

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Memorable Moments

• Josh and Chuck’s lighthearted banter about the weirdness of sneezing, especially in pandemic times, and astonishment that they’d never covered sneezing in over a decade of SYK ("felt like a first ten" episode).
• Joking about “sneeze patterns” as an inherited trait: “Double sneezers beget double sneezers.” — Chuck (26:44)
• Vivid description of how particles travel during a sneeze, likened to throwing a bucket of paint (41:46).
• Chuck’s riffing on old and modern “bless you” rituals, and their aspiration to bring back “May Zeus preserve you” as a new/old sneeze reply (48:45).

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Conclusion

“Stuff You Should Know” delivers a surprisingly fascinating exposé on the humble sneeze—spanning biology, genetics, public health, and superstition—wrapped in the show’s signature humor and curiosity. If you’re a regular sneezer or just a sneezing fan, you’ll never see a “Bless you!” the same way again.

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For questions, feedback, or to share your favorite sneeze-related urban legend, email [e-mail].

Transcript

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[Chuck Bryant]

Spring has so many wonderful things. Trees budding, flowers blooming, getting to wear straw hats. But for a lot of people, it also means a miserable season of allergies. And sneezing is the poster child for allergies.

[Josh Clark]

Let's just admit it. So we chose our episode on sneezing so we can at least help you understand what the heck is going on with your face. Even if we can't cure you, we wish we could. So seal all the doors and the windows. And kick back with this episode.

[Narrator]

Welcome to stuff youf should know, a production of iheartradio's how stuff works.

[Josh Clark]

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryan over there.

[Chuck Bryant]

Jerry is a disembodied spirit, but she's

[Josh Clark]

still with us, haunting us. And we are now set up for achievement, which means this is stuff you should know.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Set up for achievement. That sounds like a very 80s Reagan era campaign.

[Josh Clark]

It does. It definitely does. 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?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I'm surprised you didn't try and work sternutation in there.

[Josh Clark]

Somehow I love that word. Are you. Were you familiar with that word before?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I don't think. You know, I'm 49 years old. I don't think I'd ever heard sneezing being called sternutation.

[Josh Clark]

I got. Oh man, I just remembered. I'm 44 now. So you. You got me beat. But I'm in the same boat with you.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah, I 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 stiff, you probably say sternutation. If you're a scientist that wants to be friends with people, you'll still probably say sneezing.

[Josh Clark]

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 1576. It sounds old to me. It sounds clinical, but there's also a couple derivative words. Sternutative or sternutatory are things that make you sneeze.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

And Howard Stern. Baba booie.

[Josh Clark]

Right? Achooey. So we're talking sneezing, obviously, because we just discoursed on sternutitation. I'm adding an extra syllable there, aren't I?

[Chuck Bryant]

Sternutation.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

That's the Josh Clark way.

[Josh Clark]

Why do I have to complicate? Why do I have to complimicate?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

We're talking about sneezing. And sneezing is a really sort of. And I hate it when people call things like this elegant. So I'm going to refrain, but it's just a very efficient system that the human body has worked out to basically allow 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 and your brain to act as bouncers and just say, get out of my body fast. You're cut off Pal, like, real fast,

[Josh Clark]

you're cut off cigarette smoke, you're cut off Chanel number seven that nobody likes, you know? Sure, yeah. That's pretty good way to put it. I mean, and it's an ancient reflex, too. I mean, basically, all mammals, at least sneeze, some more than others. I didn't realize this, but apparently iguanas sneeze the most because it's part of their digestion.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. And then I don't know what it's technically called, but, you know, when dogs do what it's called the reverse sneeze.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, Momo has that bad.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

It's so scary.

[Josh Clark]

It is, it is. And we finally got her checked out, and they verified she doesn't have a collapsed trachea, which is when it really is threatening. It's just something to do with her nasal passages. She's brachiocephalic. You ever had a dog that has that?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I mean, I've never had a dog that didn't do it occasionally, but Nico, I feel like, goes. And it's not often, but 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.

[Josh Clark]

It's really bad.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I think you're just supposed to leave him alone, too, right? Just let him do it.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, we help her out.

[Josh Clark]

We'll rub her throat, just kind of stroke it. It seems to help. And then sometimes we'll just lightly plug her nostrils to kind of give her, like, a hitch to it. And 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.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah, but it's really not a sneeze, actually, because a sneeze is when you are. You're trying to get something out of your nose. And that nose is a pretty amazing little system. 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. They're narrow for a very good reason, and that is to create turbulence inside your nasal passages. And 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 cilia mainly is sort of like a pre doorman, just saying, like, yeah, your ID'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 in the big bouncer to initiate that sneeze response.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Sometimes they're just like, no, I'm staying here, I'm not leaving. You can't kick me out.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I hate the back of the throat.

[Josh Clark]

Super drunk, right?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

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. Or cough it up, we poop it out eventually, right?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

But, yeah, if they get stuck in the nose, then they do something magical. Almost as magical as soap. But when they're sticking to the sides and they're not going anywhere, it's clear they're not going anywhere. They actually, like, irritate some specialized cells that are in that nasal mucosa. Mast cells and erinophils, I think. But basically 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 runny, and they also simultaneously start sending signals to your brain saying, hey, we got one. We need some help.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. And I know we talked about this a little bit with another 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. And 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, you know, the lateral medulla gets, like, everything in the brain. It gets that signal and says, you know, 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's in the nose as fast as possible.

[Josh Clark]

Right. So. And I was looking this up, if you wanna get super clinical, if you're the kind of person who uses words like sternutation instead of sneezing, there's actually something called an afferent phase and an efferent phase. And an afferent phase is when you get ready to sneez. Your nerves have been tickled and are triggered and are itching, and they're sending messages to your brain in your sneeze center. And then the efferent phase is 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, ethmoidal nerve, which is a terrible word. And then your trigeminal 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 this kind of same switchboard of nerves in your face. And all this is happening in just a very short amount of time.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah, I mean, like I said, the whole thing takes place in less than a second.

[Josh Clark]

And.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

And it's gotta reach. You know, in order for it to reach that sneeze center, it's gotta be past a certain threshold of irritation, basically.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

And once it does reach that irritable point 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 that impulse down through the head and neck to initiate that response. That involves a lot of muscle groups. You know, if you. When you sneeze, it's a. And especially with some people, it can be a pretty violent action for the body.

[Josh Clark]

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, your face is all scrunched up, your neck is tight. There's a lot of muscles involved. And 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 get that thing that won't leave out of your nose.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. Like, you can. And I've seen professional athletes that have been sidelined from sneezing. If you've got a bad back or something, like, 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 in old man territory. You have a sneeze, and you're like, hold on, I can't get up.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I'm gonna have to lay down this weekend.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

But your abdomen, your chest, your diaphragm, your vocal cords, 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?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So you're sucking in a bunch of air holding it, and so the pressure's building in your thorax, and then when you release it, your vocal cord openings open up to allow the air out. But then also your diaphragm is pushing that air out really violently so that it's going out your mouth and your nose. I saw about 100 miles an hour. Is the speed that the can hit?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah, easily around 100 miles an hour. That is crazy to think about.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Your eyes close. But, you know, we can go ahead and dispel the. The old myth that you can pop your eyes out if you keep your eyes open during a sneeze.

[Josh Clark]

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.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

There's just. That's just. Would be impossible. Plus, they usually close anyway. Just automatically.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. It's a very small group of people who sneeze with their eyes open. Most people just. It's like 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.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

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. You definitely can't make yourself sneeze, like, full stop.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, no, no. I mean, yeah, there's definitely 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.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Well, we'll talk about my sneeze pattern later. I know I've talked about it before, but I find it fascinating.

[Josh Clark]

You accidentally tap out, drink your Ovaltine, and Morse code through your sneezes. Is that your thing?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Very nice.

[Josh Clark]

Thanks.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Should we take a break?

[Josh Clark]

Let's take a break, Chuck, and then we'll come back and talk more about sneezing.

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[Josh Clark]

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Well now, when you're on the road driving in your truck, why not learn a thing or two from Josh and Chuck? It's stuff you should know.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

All right.

[Josh Clark]

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.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Dr. Sneeze a lot.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes.

[Josh Clark]

Dr. Todd G. Sneeze a Lot.

[Chuck Bryant]

No.

[Josh Clark]

One of my neighbor friends, Wesley, 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. He'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 10, you know?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah, that seems like it would be an early stuff. You should know for sure.

[Josh Clark]

And, like, it kind of feels like one of those right now as we're doing it.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

But, you know, my neighbors think I'm unemployed. It's great.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. But hats off to Wes for coming up with that one.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Thanks, Wes. Yeah, now leave Josh alone.

[Josh Clark]

He's the one that we got the loveyourmama.com stuff 4. And he's like, we're halfway done with our room spray. We need some more because we're using it so fast.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

And you're the pusher, man.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I was like, first one's on me. Next are going to cost you.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. I don't correct my neighbors. They think I'm down on my luck. So that's all good, in my opinion.

[Josh Clark]

No, that's definitely the way to go. He's very nosy. So he found out. I had to finally just stop lying.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Oh, that's good stuff.

[Josh Clark]

So we're back to sneezing. We're talking sneezing, and 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 causes us to sneeze that coordinates this involuntary response. Because you're not, like, your brain's not consciously saying, like, okay, now diaphragm, expel the air. Like, this is all, like we said, involuntary.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

That'd be great if you had to say that every time you wanted to sneeze.

[Josh Clark]

Right. Expel air. So it makes sense that there would be a region that was responsible for this, because we'd already seen it in cats. Don't ask how we know 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 2005, there's basically incontrovertible evidence that came in the form of this fisherman, I believe he might have been Spanish, who had this sneezing fit one day of, like, about 20 really violent sneezes in A few minutes. And then all of a sudden, he stopped sneezing and couldn't walk right. Like, his gait was affected, almost like he'd 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 sneezes ever. And he went to the doctor and they started testing, and they would do things like put capsaicin in his nose, like red hot chili pepper in his nose, which makes everybody sneeze. It's like a universal sternotatory. Right. Makes everyone sneeze. And it wouldn't make this guy sneeze. It would burn his nose, and it would make his nose runny, but it wouldn't make him sneeze on the other side. It would make him sneeze the other nostril, but not the right, I think. And so they found this lesion on his lateral medulla, and they said, sneezing center. Welcome to our understanding.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I had such a bad Red Hot Chili Peppers joke that I just sat on through that whole spiel.

[Josh Clark]

That's very grown up of you.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Should I say it?

[Josh Clark]

Sure. Whoever said we were grownups?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

No, I was just thinking. The doctor would do the capsaicin 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.

[Josh Clark]

That was pretty good. Yeah.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

You know, it's better than fight like a brave.

[Sponsor Announcer]

I don't know.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I'm trying to think of chili pepper songs.

[Josh Clark]

What if the doctor came in wearing nothing but one of those reflector headbands and a sock on his penis, saw that coming, and that was it.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Oh, that'd be great. You know, you got the right doctor.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, you do. The party doc.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

So things that can make you sneeze. I know you kind of rattled off some jokes about perfume and smoke earlier.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, I wasn't joking.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

But those are all realities. The most common cause of a sneeze is. And the collective term is rhinitis, R H I N I T I S. And that is just your sort of standard inflammation and swelling of your mucous membrane when you got allergies, when pollen's in the air, when you have a cold. But there are all kinds of other things that can cause a sneeze, too, that are all different types of rhinitis.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Speaking of rhinitis, too, I ran across a term, the clinical term for a runny Nose is rhinorrhea.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Oh, gross.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Isn't that grody? Like that makes it at least 12 or 15 times worse than runny nose, you know?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. Weird.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So there's occupational rhinitis, which is basically when stuff you're working around makes you sneeze or irritate your nose. Things like cleaning supplies or, you know, flour I saw was a pretty common occupational rhinitis. Sternotatory or sternatative, depending on your preference.

[Chuck Bryant]

Cigarette smoke.

[Josh Clark]

If you 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?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

You think they would allow you to do that while you're working?

[Josh Clark]

They used to, up until very recently. Really? Oh, yeah. I have the impression you could just plug one off the line and light it up.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Wow. I guess if you're a smoker, that's a big perk.

[Josh Clark]

It is. But then now they're like, no smoking inside. Which leads you to the follow up question. Why? Why would you.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Because it kills you. And they go, yeah, what?

[Josh Clark]

Very dangerous, you dummy.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

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.

[Josh Clark]

Sure. There's drug induced rhinitis. There's certain drugs that have been identified. What'd you say?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

The hippest kind, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Mushrooms will make you sneeze, apparently. I'm guessing that I didn't see this anywhere, but this is an educated guess. Tell me if you think it sounds convincing. Those drugs probably stimulate your mast cells to release histamines and then that's just basically almost like a phantom allergen. Okay, that's what I'm going with.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

All right.

[Josh Clark]

But apparently NSAIDs, beta blockers, and some antihypertensive drugs are the ones that are known. Drug induced rhinitis, sternututores.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

If you are of advanced age, you might have what's called geriatic rhinitis, which is that's when those submucosal glands atrophy. And that means your nose can get really irritated and you might sneeze a lot.

[Josh Clark]

Right. That is very sad to me if you think about it, because there's not much that can be done. I'm sure you just put like, maybe vaseline or something in your nose. That's gotta be the cure for that. But that's just that because it's like your little body's running down. We should have a cure for that.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Like our medicine is not far enough along in my opinion for this to be 2020. It's kind of a disappointing 2020 everybody.

[Chuck Bryant]

Am I right?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So we've talked before, Chuck, multiple times about photic sneezing, which. I am a photic sneezer. And I don't remember if you are or not.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I feel like I have, but I don't. It's not like roundly something that happens to me. I don't think so.

[Josh Clark]

Okay. I am a photic sneezer more than I'm a native born Toledoan even. Maybe they're tied.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

So how does it get you, like anytime you like, turn on a light?

[Josh Clark]

Very rarely light. It's almost always sunlight. And I think it's just because of the intensity of it. But yeah. Walk out. Say like if I go see a movie in the middle of the day, like, it's just slacker.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I miss those days.

[Josh Clark]

And I come out, isn't that nice? And I come out and it's very sunny.

[Chuck Bryant]

Sure it is.

[Josh Clark]

Guaranteed three sneezes in a row.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Is that your usual pattern?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, usually. And I looked into that. Like why do we sneeze multiple times? Apparently there's a very simple answer for it. And it's that your, your brain has determined that the, the irritant hasn't been ejected yet. But with photic sneezing, it's. It's almost like it's mistaken identity. Right.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. I actually did see some other things too about the patterns. Cause that's always fascinated me because I always sneeze in threes.

[Josh Clark]

Oh yeah. Okay.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

And I did see where 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 a get out. But I also saw where it could be genetic.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Like that you inherit a sneeze pattern.

[Josh Clark]

Oh really?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

And that like double sneezers beget double sneezers.

[Josh Clark]

It makes sense because there are like photic sneezing is one of a couple ways that you can inherit a genetic sneezing trait. So that would make sense.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah, that's right. Photo. I'm sorry. Photic sneeze reflex is passed on by autosomal dominant inheritance. And I love this acronym because this is one of those reverse engineered ones that we like so much.

[Josh Clark]

Do you like this One I like this one.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I hated the other one.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Man with a passion like I wouldn't even.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I wasn't even gonna bring that one up, to be honest.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, we'll just pass it by and let everybody wonder for the rest of their lives.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

But autosomal, dominant, compelling Helio ophthalmic outburst syndrome. Achoo. It's a little rough.

[Josh Clark]

It is. I mean, there's a whole d. A whole dominant in there that's missing, but. Okay, fine, we'll go with that. But that's the. That is a term for photic sneezing that was coined at some point by someone. Obviously.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

That's your biggest pet peeve. Right. For acronyms is when they just sneak a word in there and don't use it for a letter.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. It's lazy. Although, I mean, I get where they were coming from. You don't want it to be AD Chew. It's like, why even do it? But you got to figure it out, you know? Yeah. I mean, just take dominant out. Just go with autosomal, you know?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. No one who would know.

[Josh Clark]

I wouldn't have noticed. So you were saying, was that it for the patterns? The sneezing patterns?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. I mean, there are just a couple of theories, either hereditary or that it just takes that much. But I'm not. 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. It feels ingrained somehow.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Like, if you only do two, you notice and it. Does it feel incomplete?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

It does, but that almost never happens. Occasionally I'll do a four banger, but I don't. I don't know that I ever sneeze once or twice. It's almost always three.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

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. There's things you can do, and one of those things that's recommended is to look at a bright light or look kind of. Don't look directly at the sun, but look toward the sun, and that should help jumpstart that efferent phase, the second part where the actual sneeze takes place.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Oh, okay. Well, that makes sense.

[Josh Clark]

But they think what's going on is that there's a crossover between the sneeze reflex arc and the pupillary light reflex arc, which basically is one nerve becoming so stimulated that 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 reflex as well and makes you sneeze.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

It's like, are you getting all this light? Are you getting this?

[Josh Clark]

Get a load of this.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I think they've landed on about between 23 and 25% generally of people have this photic sneeze reflex.

[Josh Clark]

Right. So that's, I mean, that's pretty substantial. There are some other, like small identity groups of sneezers that are far smaller than that. Apparently there are people who. There's four families, not one in four people, four families, as far as anyone knows, who have something called seneciation, which is where you. If they eat too much and they feel overly full, it will trigger a sneezing attack.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah, I would call that rare.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, four families for sure. We're just gonna pass right on by, right, Chuck?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yes. Acronym. Getting back to the photic 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. They can't pick their nose. 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 a little device which is no fun but necessary.

[Josh Clark]

Or you hold them on their side and you blow in their ear. It usually clears out the nose. I should probably just go ahead and say, don't do that. That was a joke.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

You can whisper sweet nothings, sure. But don't. Yeah, don't do that. But babies are pretty sensitive to that photic light reflex. And they think that may be a reason that basically we. That's just sort of a holdover from when we were babies.

[Josh Clark]

It makes sense. It also makes sense to me that babies might have more active or kind of raw or nerve pathways. So maybe they're just more sensitive to that, that jump over that crossover.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Maybe.

[Josh Clark]

Plucking nose hair. Does that ever happen to you?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Every time.

[Josh Clark]

So it doesn't make me sneeze, but it makes my eyes water like I've just seen every long distance commercial from the 90s all at once.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

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 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 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.

[Josh Clark]

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.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I've never plucked an eyebrow hair.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, every once in a while I'll get one that's a big, fat, long goat hair. It just suddenly comes up overnight.

[Sponsor Announcer]

Now I've seen.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I've got those too.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, well, I pluck those.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I just trim those.

[Josh Clark]

You know, it's. Maybe I should trim them. That's a good idea. But have you ever noticed if you get one, there's almost invariably one on the other side too? Like they come up in pairs. Does that happen to you?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Have not noticed that when you pull on one, does the other one get shorter?

[Josh Clark]

That was a wonderful chip.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

That'd be great.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. It's like pulling that spaghetti through your nose and out your mouth.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Don't do that either.

[Josh Clark]

Can you do that?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

No, I've never tried to do stuff.

[Josh Clark]

I've never tried either. I don't want to. There's also a group of people who sneeze when they become sexually aroused.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah, that's a thing, apparently. Or if you orgasm, like after you orgasm, it could trigger a sneezing fit.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. It's apparently a bigger group than you would expect. Some researcher went around to Internet chat rooms and said, hey, does anybody sneeze when they become aroused or when. When they have an orgasm? And she found 17 people who sneeze from sexual ideation and three who sneeze from orgasm, which is. That is way more than I would expect from just going around on Internet chat rooms and asking people, you know.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. And also we should point out way not scientific.

[Josh Clark]

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 journal, coincidentally enough. They suggest that it's because the nose contains erectile tissue, which it does. Which erectile tissue is just tissue that can become larger and gorged by blood flow. And yes, you have erectile tissue in your genitalia. Yes, you have it in your nose. But they're not in any way related as far as anyone's ever even thought. Aside from the people in this journal, Isn't that the most bizarre thing you've ever heard?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

It's pretty bizarre.

[Josh Clark]

Like your nose is becoming aroused is basically what they're saying. And so you sneeze. Yeah. Fantastic.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

There's also intractable sneezing or psychogenic. And that is something that's almost exclusive to young women, 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 on these big sneezing binges for days and days at a time.

[Josh Clark]

Yes. And apparently the. The world. The world. Oh, my goodness. The world record holder is a girl named Donna Griffiths, who was 12 when she started. She started in 1981, January of 1981. And her sneezing fit ended 977 days later in September of 1983.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I remember hearing about this one.

[Josh Clark]

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. 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 toward the end. But that first year sounds like a bear.

[Sponsor Announcer]

Yeah.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

No good.

[Josh Clark]

A million sneezes in the first 365 days, which is basically a sneeze a minute on average. And Chuck. And 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 just during waking hours, but sneeze a minute over 24 hours, compressed into, say, 10 or 12 hours that she was awake that day.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Or would she wake herself up sneezing?

[Josh Clark]

I don't know. If that's the case, then she had a really, really rough year because she was sneezing every minute and not getting any sleep.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

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.

[Josh Clark]

Well, luckily she was 12. And this is after child labor laws were passed. I'M hoping she didn't get out of that cigarette factory. That's right. She has nimble little fingers for sorting cigarettes.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Perfect. Should we take another break?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I think so.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

All right, we'll talk about these, the travel and droplets right after this great band. Burning stuff is fun with Josh and

[Promo Voice]

Chuck, so you should know

[Josh Clark]

Foreign.

[Chuck Bryant]

This episode is brought to you by Audi.

[Josh Clark]

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[Chuck Bryant]

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[Chuck Bryant]

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[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I certainly do.

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[Chuck Bryant]

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[Josh Clark]

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[Chuck Bryant]

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[Chuck Bryant]

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[Josh Clark]

Yep.

[Sponsor Announcer]

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[Medical Disclaimer Voice]

This message is sponsored by Regeneron and Sanofi. Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant do not have direct experience with the product advertised or the disease.

[Sponsor Announcer]

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[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

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[Chuck Bryant]

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[Josh Clark]

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[Sponsor Announcer]

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[Medical Disclaimer Voice]

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[Chuck Bryant]

Dupixent helps heal your skin from within. Talk to your eczema specialist about dupixent or visit dupixent.com to learn more.

[Promo Voice]

Well, now, when you're on the road, driving in your truck, why not learn a thing or two from Josh and Chuck? Stuff you should know.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

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?

[Josh Clark]

No, I think it was during.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Was it during? Okay.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And this is a. Dave helped us out. Dave Roos helped us out with this one.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. So. And I think we've all seen these videos by now with everything that's going on. But. But in 2016, a researcher from MIT named Lydia. Oh, boy. Goodness me. Burrubia.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Buriba.

[Josh Clark]

I'm going with Buruiba. There's a couple of oo sounds in there that follow one another. It makes it very difficult. Yeah.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Whenever you pack three vowels in a row, it's always sort of a dealer's choice. So she published some slow mo 2000 frame per second film images of people sneezing and what that looked like. That's where we get. And other people have done this, too, and measured the sneeze, but that's one place where we get the 100 miles per hour, stat.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, from that study.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. And other places. I mean, that's pretty common knowledge now, but up to 25, 30ft, you can blow a sneeze. It can stay suspended in the air for a few minutes. And they likened it to if you would take a bucket of paint and just throw the paint out of the can into the air, sort of is how a sneeze works. They call it sheets of fluids. And, you know, you got these 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 mist that sort of can hang in the air.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. It starts as a clump and then turns into ropey filaments and then into increasingly smaller particles and those really small particles, the aerosolized stuff.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

That's the scary stuff.

[Josh Clark]

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. That would have to be a very hardy contagious virus or bacteria.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. With like no airflow.

[Josh Clark]

Right. Yeah. To just sit there. But the 27ft, which is kind of common knowledge these days in the era of coronavirus, that your sneeze can project those particles up to like 27ft, there's little pockets of gas and turbulence that are in a room, even a room that seems still, but certainly one that has like the AC on or air flowing through it. And those little particles can hitch rides on those pockets and travel, I saw, 200 times further than you expel them with just your sneeze.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So you know what prevents that?

[Chuck Bryant]

Covering yourself, your mouth and your nose

[Josh Clark]

when you sneeze and. Or wearing a mask.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

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 a pretty good system.

[Josh Clark]

I think it's really cute to see a little kid do that too.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. Because they're doing the right thing. It is adorable. I agree.

[Josh Clark]

But yeah, the ideal is to. To sneeze into a tissue, 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.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Every single time. And I don't sneeze a lot. Emily sneezes a lot.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. Because she's got the allergies.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Don't do it. So she's got a lifelong persistent tickle in her nose. It's terrible.

[Josh Clark]

Does she have, what's it called, that kind of sneezing where it's. Oh, psychogenic, intractable sneezing?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Well, no, because she's not 13,

[Josh Clark]

man.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

No, it's just allergy related. But lots of sneezing when it's really bad, it's pretty tough to be around. Not tough for me, but you know.

[Josh Clark]

Right, right. Yeah, it's really annoying.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Stop.

[Josh Clark]

So I did look up to find out where we stood as far as knowledge on sneezing and 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 this 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, 20 or 30ft directly toward you, you're probably not going to catch enough of a viral load of something like coronavirus to become sick from it. Especially if you're not in a crowded group. If you're just walking outside and somebody else is walking, you know, 15ft 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's going to dissipate so much because of all the factors, the environmental factors that exist outdoors, rather as opposed to indoors. Indoors is a totally different ball game. Outdoors, you're much safer.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. I mean, I haven't. I haven't been around a human that sneezed, aside from my wife in, you know, four or five months.

[Josh Clark]

Great.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Like, I would. Even when I've gone to the store and, like, I'm on the lookout for that stuff.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

And, 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 freak out a little bit.

[Josh Clark]

Sure. I think you're allowed to yell at

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

that person, but I haven't even seen anyone been around anyone that sneezed, so that's been a comfort.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Yumi went to the store and came back and said somebody sneezed twice. And the whole store just started looking around, like, where'd that come from?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Oh, God. Yeah. It's weird, huh?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Yeah. There's basically, like a stampede or something to get away from that thing.

[Chuck Bryant]

It is.

[Josh Clark]

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.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. You know, it's gonna.

[Josh Clark]

I know. I will be. Yeah.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

So should we talk a little bit about culture and, you know, sort of what people say all around the world? I know here in America, it's sort of custom to say, God bless you, or bless you, and that, you know, there's some different explanations. But one of them that seems to hold water, I think dates back to the Middle Ages with the Black Plague, when Pope Gregory VII 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.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Which is from what I saw, a big departure from earlier Christian teachings which taught people to just totally ignore sneezes

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

or say God is dead.

[Josh Clark]

Which I. Right. Which I find very weird. Like why would you teach people, do you 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 1919. And he cited that. That earlier Christians were like, just ignore it. Just pretend it didn't happen.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. I'm a bless you guy. And don't do the gesundheit or salute, which is Spanish, to your health, that kind of thing. Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

It's also a toast.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah, I say that. 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 do with anyone anymore. You know, I've forgotten to deal with people.

[Josh Clark]

I always raise my glass and say it's time to get toe up from the flow up.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I say, may Jupiter bless you.

[Josh Clark]

Right. I saw another one from the Greeks too. I love that one. Live Zeus preserve you.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I think you and I should bring back both of those.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

That's fantastic.

[Josh Clark]

Can't you imagine everyone in Greece just like being like, don't sneeze, don't sneeze. Just everyone's all twitchy and shaky from people yelling that at them.

[Sponsor Announcer]

Yeah.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I mean, it's weird too because it's a very kind thing to do to a stranger. It's this one, 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. And I'll always do it. We've done it during our live shows when someone sneezes 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.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Where people just kind of have a brief connection right then, you know, even though they don't know each other.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

But now it's like a human being.

[Josh Clark]

You're a human being. What is it now?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Well, just bless you and please get very far away from me if you're going to do it again.

[Josh Clark]

Bless you over there. 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 other cultures or old, ancient cultures, that kind of thing. The closest one I could find that seemed like that was in Persia. Zoroasters 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 deserved a prayer. And that if you overheard somebody sneeze, you would say the same prayer with them. I couldn't find what prayer, though.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah, it seems to be a good luck thing in a lot of cultures throughout the years. According to the Talmud, it's a good omen if you sneeze when you're praying. In China and Japan, if you sneeze, it means someone's sort of like your ears are burning, someone's talking about you.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

And one sneeze means they're saying nice things. Two means they're spreading gossip. I don't know what they would think about me with my three. Three means you die, Right.

[Josh Clark]

What would three mean?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I don't know. I mean, because there's only two ways people can talk about you, right?

[Josh Clark]

Exactly. They might be saying something like, chuck has a beard.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

You know, that's as neutral as it gets. Exactly. So 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 too. Urban legends is what we call them. Or 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. Bonk. That one pretty clearly, I think. Don't.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

You can't do it.

[Josh Clark]

And then there's some other ones too. There's one that Yumi 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.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I've heard your heart stops.

[Josh Clark]

I had never heard that before until a couple days ago. And yeah, I looked it up and it's a thing. But no, 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 heart's alive or not.

[Sponsor Announcer]

Yeah.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. Your heart does not stop. No. That's like playground stuff.

[Josh Clark]

It is. I thought it was very cute. What about sneezing after sex? Preventing pregnancy? Did you see this one?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Well, I mean, what are you sneezing out of?

[Josh Clark]

Right. So, I mean, like, that's the idea that if you sneeze, you're expelling. Well, there's really no other way to put it. Semen. And that. That would keep you from getting pregnant.

[Medical Disclaimer Voice]

Wow.

[Josh Clark]

Seems a little ridiculous.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah. That's another playground thing, I guess.

[Josh Clark]

So what playground have you been hanging out on?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Pretty advanced playground activity.

[Josh Clark]

You got anything else? Oh, I've got one more thing. Chuck, you got anything else?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I got nothing else.

[Josh Clark]

In 2016 or 18, a man in Leicester in the UK ruptured his throat from trying to stifle a sneeze. The pressure was so great, it broke open his throat.

[Sponsor Announcer]

Wow.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Internally didn't break through the skin, but his. His intern. His throat internally was ruptured because that's

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

what I pictured, right? Like a throat explosion.

[Josh Clark]

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 Wes for the idea. And since I said that, it's time for listener mail.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I'm gonna call this Atlanta, Texas. Hey, guys. My name's Ben Lee, local Atlantan, Georgia, and my wife and I are huge, longtime fans. In your recent episode on Pirate Radio, y' all briefly brought up Radio Atlanta, which was named after Atlanta, Texas. 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 5,000 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 Smokey and the Bandit movie.

[Josh Clark]

I thought that was the town that dreaded sundown too, wasn't it?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I don't know about that. I definitely remember from Smokey and the Bandit.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Because they were driving that beer from Texarkana to Atlanta, and Benjamin here says, I don't know why they didn't do Atlanta to Atlanta. Wasted opportunity.

[Josh Clark]

It really is. It sounds like Benjamin moved from Atlanta to Atlanta, though, huh?

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Maybe.

[Josh Clark]

Kinda.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

I mean, he's in Atlanta, right? He teaches at Georgia State.

[Josh Clark]

That's pretty awesome. Hey, hats off to you for teaching these days. Benjamin.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yeah, he says there's a lot of towns in Texas, though, named that are also Georgia names. There's an Athens, Texas, a Douglasville, a Columbus, Dallas, Georgia and Texas. And he said there's even a Georgia, Texas.

[Josh Clark]

Well, that's just confusing.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

And he said thanks for all the great stuff. And that is from Benjamin Bowden Lee.

[Josh Clark]

Thanks a lot Benjamin Bowden Lee. That was a great email. We appreciate it. Any email that references Smokey and the Bandit, we're all right with.

[Charles W. 'Chuck' Bryant]

Yep.

[Josh Clark]

Well, if you want to email us about Smokey and the Bandit or anything else, we'd love to hear from you. You can send it to stuff [e-mail]

[Narrator]

Stuff youf Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts are Wherever you listen to your favorite shows,

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