Why do we blink our eyes when we sneeze?

Answers (3)

• ezycome_ezygo

  05/06/2013

  Usually, we close our eyes unintentionally when we sneeze. Personally, it is a natural reaction to blink the eyes for a sneeze. And I just search online and found someone said that the eyes will pop out a bit if we don’t close our eyes when we sneeze. It sounds really like a tale. Still some people said that we close the eyes when sneeze in order to keep our eyes from any dirty things. Anyway, this is not a problem of blink eyes when we sneeze.

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• Audrey

  05/07/2013

  On the one hand, sneezing is a defensive reflex of the human body, it starts with a deep breath. Our body in expelling foreign body in nose will need a very stressful pressure, the air pressure can make out about the speed of 150 km an hour. If sneezing with eyes open, the lacrimal gland duct could seriously be hurt or even injury to the optic nerve. In order to protect the fragile eye, in the long term evolution, we have gathered the instinctive reaction of the brain. On the other hand, close eyes sometimes can reduce outside interference, sometimes you want to sneeze, but just someone to talk to you or give you a pat, then it is probably just sneezed out.

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• Justin fergus

  05/09/2013

  It is impossible that people could blink when they are sneezing, and the only possibility of blinking is before the sneeze. When people are going to sneeze, it requires a lot of force to expel the air out of the body, and there will be great pressure inside the lungs, mouth cavity and nasal cavity. At the same time, the orbicularis oculi muscles which are in charge of closing the eyes have to be very tense because these muscles are controlled by the facial nerves, thus the eyes will spontaneously be closed, otherwise, the eyeballs could be jet our of the eye sockets.

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