brainstem Archives | Intellexi Med

Sneezing [Show Notes]

June 19, 2017 in Podcasts tagged abs / brainstem / diaphragm / episode / eyes / irritant / nose / sneeze center / sneezing / tongue by Cynthia Hendrix

Sneezing is very forceful in your body.

Review

The inside of your nose is covered with mucous membranes, and that mucus traps up things so they don’t get into your lungs.

Some little particles float through the air and into your nose. They will land on those mucous membranes and irritate it. That irritation sends a signal to your sneeze center of your brainstem.

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Brainstem

Sneezing Details

The sneeze center sends out several signals. One goes to your diaphragm to tell it to compress the lungs to force the air out. Another signal goes to your tongue to have it direct the air through your nose. The last signal goes to your eyes – it is really true, you can’t sneeze with your eyes open.

So your abs contract and your diaphragm forces your lungs to exhale, your tongue directs the air to go out your nose, so the mucus plus the things that irritated your nose flies out of your face.

*Mythbusters sneeze experiment*

The proven statistics on sneezes is that they travel about 40 mph but only go about 20 feet.

Holding in a sneeze can be painful and damaging. By holding in all that air, you can rupture your eardrums, damage your tear ducts in your eyes, fracture your nasal cartilage or bones, or cause nose bleeds because of the blast against your sinus passages.

Sneezing Advice

There’s so many tricks about trying to stop a sneeze – most of them involve counter-pressure on other spots on your face or body.

The best advice for stopping a sneeze is to blow your nose to get out the irritants before the body blasts it out with a sneeze.

You will never ever sneeze when you’re sleeping. So morning sneezing fits are normal for a lot of people. This is because all the dust and stuff you breathe in while you’re sleeping finally irritates your body. So morning congestion and sneezing is normal to help clear all of that out.

We’re unsure why people will sneeze in other situations like sudden exposure to bright light or changes in air pressure or temperature. Another unsual trigger is an over-full stomach. Multiple people have reported they feel nauseous and once they sneeze, the sick feeling goes away. I dunno….

If you do have to sneeze, make sure you cover your face. Use the elbow technique!

*Mythbusters hanky*

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Music Credits: “Radio Martini” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Brainstem

February 20, 2017 in Brain / Podcasts tagged brainstem / breathing / episode / heart beat / medulla oblongata / midbrain / pons / rhythms by Cynthia H.

An out of focus image of white and colored dots of light. The picture was taken this way, don't blame the out of focus on your brainstem.

Brainstem Basics

Your brainstem is the most basic area of the brain. The area of the brain that we have in common with almost all other levels of the animal kingdom. It extends right into the spinal cord. A lot of other whole body involuntary reflexes come from the spinal cord – that’s another story for another day).

3 main parts

Medulla oblongata – rhythm center (heart rate, breathing, swallowing, vomiting and coughing reflex) – they’re all involuntary
Pons (not ponds) – the bridge between the cerebellum hemispheres and other brain regions, helps coordinate the right side and left side of your body for complex activities
Midbrain – sensory reflexes (also involuntary) – blinking, eye focusing, pupil dilation in response to light, visual and auditory startling reflex that kick-starts the “fight or flight cascade”.

Other eye focusing problems are not rooted in the midbrain. They are more likely rooted in the areas of the brain that control orbital muscles or in the areas that translate what your eyes are seeing, like a “lazy eye” or drifting eye or being cross-eyed. There are therapies that doctors prescribe to try and strengthen the weak eye. Blinking is usually a response to eye moisture.