I’m one of those weirdos that enjoys a good sneeze, but I don’t understand what happens when you sneeze. Why does our body react in such a way? And why do we have it built into our systems? And why do they often come in multiples?
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Sneezing clears debris out of your nose. Your trigeminal nerve (a nerve in your nose) picks up irritation and tells the whole sneeze procedure to start up, like running a prewritten computer program. Your body builds up air pressure and then releases it all at once, blasting stuff out. In addition, you can’t feel it, but a bunch of tiny hairs in your nose called cilia start a sweeping motion that pushes the matter toward your nostrils, so you can blow it out more easily. Imagine a shag carpet whose fibers can all swish in the same direction.
The cilia are key: many people who sneeze more and have more nasal debris, don’t have functioning cilia along that route. It makes your nose less self-cleaning and so you have more issues with clogs.
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