05/29/2026
Ever feel near to death and have to remind yourself you’re not?
Think of sneezing. Many say it is as close to death as you will ever get.
Those feelings of doom are usually not based in reality.
The myths around sneezing:
The “soul escaping” belief — some ancient cultures thought a sneeze could expel your soul, which is why people started saying “bless you” — to protect the sneezer.
The heart myth — there’s a popular claim that your heart stops when you sneeze. It doesn’t. Your heart rhythm can briefly change due to pressure changes in your chest, but it doesn’t stop.
The “little death” idea — some people conflate sneezing with the brief involuntary muscle contractions and loss of control it causes, but that’s a stretch.
However…
What actually happens during a sneeze is a powerful, coordinated reflex — your eyes close, muscles contract, and air shoots out at up to 100 mph. You do briefly lose conscious control, but your body is very much alive and working hard.
The closest grain of truth is that a very forceful sneeze can occasionally cause injury — ruptured blood vessels, cracked ribs in rare cases — but the sneeze itself isn’t analogous to dying.
It’s more poetry than physiology.
When you have that feeling of death and fear, think it through. You are usually just fine.
Bless you.
