Why do we close our eyes when we sneeze?
As soon as you feel that sneeze coming in, you cannot help but close your eyes. What is the relationship between these two occurrences?
Even when driving at 130 km/h on the highway, there’s no escaping the need to close our eyes for a split second when that sneeze sneaks up on us. If we try to explain why that happens, some of the wildest theories come to mind. Starting with the one that claims that if the eyes were open, they could come out orbit because of the pressure created by sneezing! Talk about crazy.
TOO MUCH PRESSURE IN THE EYE?
“The pressure created by a sneeze is far from being sufficient to propel the eyes out of their sockets, and even if that were the case, closing the eyelids would not suffice them to stay in their sockets,” laughs Alexandre Bonnet, osteopath *. He states that it is only a reflex-related neuro-parasympathetic system, which is beyond our will and our control. However, the mystery remains about the usefulness of this automatism.
Some also sneeze when they look at the sun. This sneezing “photic” (his nickname), is a significant stimulation of the optic nerve which “tickles” the trigeminal nerve causing one to sneeze. If this explanation remains speculative, we know for a fact that this is also a matter of genetics, where several members of a family are generally concerned with photic sneezing. Finally, if photic sneezing is not very annoying in every day life, it is a real handicap for fighter pilots in whom it is not tolerated.
* Osteopathe-paris8.fr
Maureen Diament
