Dear Kid,

If you happened to be alive in the year 600, and if you happened to have accesses to papal decrees (which was not easy given that Twitter didn’t exist), you would have learned that according to Pope Gregory (the Great) saying “God bless you” is the correct response when someone sneezes. Pope Gregory (the Great) has had a lasting impact on the world.

Sneezing’s official name is sternutation. Knowing that will not necessarily make you popular at parties. Reading about sneezing made me sneeze. No one was around to bless me, but I seem to have survived. And I now have interesting sneeze facts to share with you.

The nerves that are involved with sneezing relax when we sleep which is why people don’t sneeze when asleep.

Sneezes travel about 100 miles an hour and can send over 100,000 germs flying toward your roommate. Which is why covering your nose and mouth when you sneeze is more than polite.

Exercise might make you sneeze if you hyperventilate (which makes your nose and mouth dry out, which makes your nose drip, which might make you sneeze).

Sunshine makes some people sneeze, but it’s an inherited trait so you probably don’t have to worry about that.

Sex makes some people sneeze. It has to do with the parasympathetic nervous system, but I don’t really understand why.

Cold air can make people sneeze. And whine. Not that I would whine about cold air (achoo!).

Popping pimples cause sneezing. Which is another reason to leave your face alone.

Iguanas sneeze more than any other animal to get rid of salt that is the byproduct of their digestive process. There might be a good business ideas in hankies for iguanas.

I fear one day I’ll meet God, he’ll sneeze and I won’t know what to say. ~Ronnie Shakes

It is not possible to sneeze with your eyes open, and it is not worth skipping some of your studying to try to disprove this fact.

Gesundheit

Love, Mom