Is there any genetic component to the way you sneeze?

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All of my friends, they sneeze very quietly, like a small “achoo” and that’s it but when I sneeze, I do it like a dad of four married kids, turning the heads of the entire room, which is very similar to the way both my mom and dad sneeze and that got me wondering.

In: Biology

15 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

It’s probably much more nurture based. How we treat noticeable bodily functions (Burps, farts etc.) is mostly social in nature. In our house we are loud and proud! So our sneezes and such are loud too. I bet in a more reserved household you learn to “keep it quiet”.

Anonymous 0 Comments

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Anonymous 0 Comments

I know people who close their mouths and press the nostrils with their fingers to keep it inside, the only time I tried that I made a mess

Anonymous 0 Comments

I sneeze very hard and numerous times (10-15+). My husband had cancer. I always went with him to him chemo treatments. One day I sneezed and the nurses came running. They said they had never heard anyone sneeze that hard. No one else in my family has hard sneezes. I’ve pulled back muscles I sneeze so hard.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Just for the record, there’s at least some genetic component to how we sneeze because of the hereditary aspect of the [photic sneeze reflex](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photic_sneeze_reflex?wprov=sfla1)

Anonymous 0 Comments

Not necessarily pure genetics, but anatomy. I had a nose injury that made my sneezes sound like farts for the longest time.

Anonymous 0 Comments

When my daughter was about 18 months old she started with the dad sneezes. Scared the shit out of me when she first did it. She’s almost 16 now and still does it.

Her brother does the ngtchoo like me and everyone on my side of the family.

I blame their dad’s inferior genes.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Some kid in the math class I was subbing for today just announced this exact thought out loud to the entire class, and I’m wondering if that was you.

Anonymous 0 Comments

My husband sneezes 20x in a row. His dad does it also. It’s terrible but runs in the family

Anonymous 0 Comments

Apparently the number of sneezes you do in sequence is genetic. I always sneeze in pairs, and so does my daughter. I’ve heard that there is a genetic correlation between sneezing patterns in parents and children