Why Do We Sneeze?

Ah-Ugh-Oo.

4 am Friday and this scribe is awoken by a strange short shriek.

Ah-Ugh-Oo!

There it is again. A burst of phonic energy ripples through the neighbourhood.

Ah-Ugh-Oo goes a third time.

Now, this writer is truly curious. What could this recurring retch be? Snoring from a sound sleeper, perhaps? That sounds plausible as it is four in the morning and much of the locality is in deep slumber. But who snores in explosive syllables?

Ah-Ugh-Oo!!

No, this most definitely is not a snore. But could it be a cry? Maybe someone is in pain, or maybe it is a scream. Is someone fighting? But again, who screams in three distinct notes? Having neighbours who are super into Yoga, this penman regularly hears weird screams and moans and has been told, rather poignantly in fact, that he himself has a weird yell that sounds like an unrestrained bawl from an animal dying of thirst. He has also been told that about his singing but that is beside the point. What matters right now is what this specific sound emanating from an unknown source so early in the morning could be.

Ah-Ugh-Oo.

With the fifth whoop, it hit the author of this piece who is desperately running out of fancy words to refer to himself in the third person. It is a sneeze. A sneeze a little too exuberant for his liking but a sneeze nonetheless.

And, at four in the morning on a Friday, with his sleep so cruelly snatched by someone with a terrible case of the sniffles …  Ah-Ugh-Oo, a sixth wheeze, … this reporter got thinking, what is a sneeze anyway?

Philosophers, or sleep-deprived youths with classes to attend in less than three hours, could certainly have long deep debates about this. But to get straight to the point (and just Google it), sneezing seems to be a mechanism developed by our bodies to get rid of irritants in the nose. And according to the Department of Health of the Queensland State of Australia, which has a really informative and in-depth section on sternutation and allergies on its website, sneezes can be triggered by a wide array of things from dust, pollen or germs to sudden changes in temperature and light. This columnist wonders which of these could have triggered the particular violent olfactory ejections that woke him up.

As per the Department’s website, when something foreign enters our nose, it stimulates the part of our brain known as the sneeze centre which then triggers our chest muscles, diaphragm, abdomen, vocal cords and throat muscles to initiate a process to expel the alien particle, a process that culminates in what we Nepalis have onomatopoeically named Haachhyu (or Ah Choo, if you are polite).

Ah-Ugh-Oo!!!

Seriously, a seventh time? How are this person’s lungs still in their chest! The first two sneezes were understandable and the third one was funny but now it is genuinely concerning. Is it even possible for an individual to sneeze these many times? Turns out, yes.

Sometimes, one or two sneezes are just not enough to eject the irritant so the body keeps sneezing.

And then, there are what medicals call “mega-sneezers” – the people who sneeze many times and are very loud when doing it – kind of like the individual who inspired this article, the individual whose sneeze was probably audible to the astronauts on the International Space Station. Mega-sneezers are people with a greater lung capacity which enables them to take in more air before they sneeze. And as the Queensland Department of Health’s site describes it: “The more air breathed in, the bigger the sneeze.”

But it seems like the seventh time was the last for the sneezer in my vicinity. It has been a good 15 minutes since he last exploded and it appears that his body has finally got rid of whatever was bothering his respiratory tract. Good for him. It means nothing to this pen-pusher (yes, I am scraping the bottom of the barrel now for these synonyms) though because he has totally got out of bed and has begun his day. His saying this is not passive-aggressive, he is just expressing his dislike – yes, there is a difference.

Ah-Ugh-Oo!!!!

Spoke too soon. An eighth one erupts.

One must hope he does not have a contagious virus because the respiratory droplets expelled from sneezes can travel up to two metres away. These droplets, and the contagion they carry, can then get inhaled by other people. Also, the droplets may land on frequently touched surfaces like tables and doorknobs. All these spread diseases like COVID-19.

Ah… What’s that? A ninth one? No, just a motorcycle passing by.