Resolve now to eat more pie and let those sneezes fly
Clay is off this week. Here’s a column first published Dec. 31, 2007:
Have you made any New Year’s resolutions? I have, and for a change I’m going to keep them instead of forgetting about them in a couple of weeks.
For one thing, I resolve to eat more pie. And I am going to work on my laziness habit. I bet if I really buckle down I can be even lazier in the new year than I have been this year. Call me idealistic. Call me high-minded, but I can do it.
And I’m going to get started as soon as I take care of this lady’s question.
As a woman of a certain age who has to cross her legs each time she sneezes (way too much information, I know), it has come to my attention that sneezes can be overwhelmingly powerful forces of nature. Are sneezes rated in any way by the amount of force or energy they emit? Like a Richter scale for sneezes? It took me a minute to figure out the crossing-your-legs thing. You’re right, lady — too much information.
Did you know that some Buddhist teachings hold that sneezing can give you a kind of low-level experience of near-death awareness and what they call “clear light?” I guess this is supposed to be a good thing.
Anyway, as far as I can tell, no one has ever devised a scale for rating the force of sneezes.
However, I can tell you a good, hearty sneeze can propel about 5,000 germy droplets up to 12 feet at about 100 mph.
You don’t want to go around spreading contagion by sneezing on people, but it also is not a good idea to stifle a sneeze. That can send a powerful rush of air up your eustachian tubes and might damage your ears. Why do cold symptoms seem to get worse at night?
They don’t really. You’re just more aware of them.
During the day your brain keeps itself busy analyzing stimuli, sending out messages and just running the show in general. But when you are asleep, your brain doesn’t have as many things on its mind, so to speak, so it can pay more attention to the fact that you’re sick.