Mouth or nose? (part 2)...

[Sneezer]

Has anyone else ever found it odd that most people sneeze through the MOUTH, yet in most cases it is an irritant in the NOSE that causes the need to sneeze in the first place? I mean, it seems like sneezing through the nose would be the human body's most effective way at removing an irritant (although I'm glad that's not how it actually works because it does sound painful!).

Let's be glad that the reverse doesn't happen when some sort of irritant were to enter the mouth....!

Just a random "deep thought"... :-)

[Sneesee]

You know, I never really thought about it that way before. I guess the body is just simply trying to get rid of the irritant, whether it be through the mouth or nose. And I am glad it isn't the reverse that's true.

Interesting thought for today, though.

[King_of_the_ruins]

There are two things I suspect as the reasons for this. One is that, physically, there isn't all that much seperating nose and mouth and the other is that a sneeze is basically an inhale and then exhale of sorts and on it's way out, air coming from your lungs would reach your mouth before your nose. And therefore, if your mouth was open, the air would natural escape through it before reaching the nose. I also think that sneezing through our mouths is not entirely a physical reflex, but a mental one as well. We've probably all experienced at one point or another in our lives, the pain that can result from sneezing through your nose alone. So when we feel a sneeze, the mental instinct to open our mouth is so fast that we don't even register the thought process that goes into it.

that makes perfect sense to me.

[Secret98]

Has anyone ever noticed that dogs and cats sneeze through their noses? But we humans sneeze through our mouths and noses? Has anyone ever seen someone sneeze in their sleep? If so, the way they sneeze while asleep might have almost no psychological aspects to the way they sneeze, maybe... I'm not sure just a theory

I'm confusing myself anyone want to help figure out what I'm saying???

[King_of_the_ruins]

Has anyone ever noticed that dogs and cats sneeze through their noses? But we humans sneeze through our mouths and noses? Has anyone ever seen someone sneeze in their sleep? If so, the way they sneeze while asleep might have almost no psychological aspects to the way they sneeze, maybe... I'm not sure just a theory

I'm confusing myself anyone want to help figure out what I'm saying???

yes, i have noticed dogs and cats sneeze through their noses.

Most humans sneeze through their mouths, and some through nose and mouth.

I have seen someone sneeze in their sleep, and you are right, because normally this girl

would hold her sneezes in, but her sneezes in her sleep were totally uninhibited, full

open sneezes.

[Geist]

Mr. Aku sneezes in his sleep all the time and they are more "uninhibited" than his normal sneezes to some degree.

Back on topic, though . . .

My sneezes come through both my mouth and my nose. I feel it in both places. I mean, if we only sneezed through our mouths, why would you need a tissue for your nose sometimes?

~Aku

[resolution]

A sneeze passes through the nose and the mouth (infact that is part of the dictionary defintion of it, even though clearly there are some individuals that sneeze through the nose alone and defy this definition). A sneeze is usually extremely explosive and if it passed exclusively through the nose, it would be quite unpleasant. There is, as Fifi supposed , very little separating the nose and the mouth, so the air is divided between the two passages, the majority passing through the mouth. Enough passes through the nose to attempt to knock out the irritant. Different people sneeze through their nose to varying degrees. It ranges from the cough like sneezes where a minimal amount of air passes through, to those entirely nasal sneezes, that are usually less forceful.

[Secret98]

A sneeze passes through the nose and the mouth (infact that is part of the dictionary defintion of it, even though clearly there are some individuals that sneeze through the nose alone and defy this definition). A sneeze is usually extremely explosive and if it passed exclusively through the nose, it would be quite unpleasant. There is, as Fifi supposed , very little separating the nose and the mouth, so the air is divided between the two passages, the majority passing through the mouth. Enough passes through the nose to attempt to knock out the irritant. Different people sneeze through their nose to varying degrees. It ranges from the cough like sneezes where a minimal amount of air passes through, to those entirely nasal sneezes, that are usually less forceful.

Maybe this explains, why some people always sneeze twice and others always once...

[resolution]

A sneeze passes through the nose and the mouth (infact that is part of the dictionary defintion of it, even though clearly there are some individuals that sneeze through the nose alone and defy this definition). A sneeze is usually extremely explosive and if it passed exclusively through the nose, it would be quite unpleasant. There is, as Fifi supposed , very little separating the nose and the mouth, so the air is divided between the two passages, the majority passing through the mouth. Enough passes through the nose to attempt to knock out the irritant. Different people sneeze through their nose to varying degrees. It ranges from the cough like sneezes where a minimal amount of air passes through, to those entirely nasal sneezes, that are usually less forceful.

Maybe this explains, why some people always sneeze twice and others always once...

This also means that sneezes always expel mucus (usually not a visible quantity).

Someone had posted a while ago an article explaining that this is one of the stages of a sneeze (the secretion of music from within the nose). Mucus with it's stickiness is designed to trap foreign agents in the body and the sneeze is actually designed to expell mucus from the nose (which hastrapped the foreign bodies). Nice thought huh? Oh here is another pleasant thought about sneezes from colds. It comes from a site on the link below.

"What the model does not depict is the globule of mucus that the virus would almost certainly be swimming in. "The viruses don't float around as little spaceships," Eccles said. "The only way you're going to catch a cold is for mucus from someone else's nose to get into your nose."

A sneeze does the job nicely, releasing a spray of virus-laden droplets that are easily inhaled by anyone nearby. Failing that, the viruses can survive for hours outside the body, lying in wait on, say, a doorknob before hitching a ride on a hand and getting rubbed into an eye."

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/02/07/news/cold.php

[stevie_sloth]

You can tell you always sneeze through your nose as well as your mouth if you've got a cold or something, cause you know, sometimes...blegh stuff comes out through your nose, even if you're not sneezing any differently than you normally do. I would assume from the feeling and sound that I sneeze 100% through my mouth, but obviously not. There's just usually no discharge from the nose, so you don't really notice the air passing through it at the same time as the mouth.