When you get news of sadness, disapointment, or something heartbreaking, why do you get that feeling like your throat is clogging up?
In: Biology
Hey! [I made a quick video to answer your question (With a 10/10 joke at the end).](https://youtu.be/cI1FTfH2H0c)
In case videos aren’t your thing, I’ll summarise here too.
* It stems from the autonomic nervous sytems (ANS). This is responsible for a bunch of different things such as blood flow and rate of breathing.
* When we are faced with a stressful sitatuation (like news of sadness etc) our ANS kicks in to allow for fight or flight.
* Our body changes rapidly because of this, but the important part of this for the question is the increase of blood flow and oxygen to the necessary muscles.
* To help us get more oxygen to the muscles, we breath faster and expand our glottis. This is the opening of the throat that allows air flow from the ‘voice box’ to the lungs.
* This doesn’t cause the lump UNTIL we swallow. When we swallow, we are essentially fighting with these muscles and causing tension. That tension is that lump you are feeling.
There’s also a name for it, it’s called the **globus sensation.** Hope that helped mate.
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