You are at an occasion and everywhere seems quiet, suddenly you get that urge to let out a hearty sneeze but you don’t want to draw an unnecessary attention to yourself and you strive to stifle the sneeze. You may be creating a healthy problem for yourself by so doing.
Sneezing is caused by several factors that irritate sensitive nerve endings in the nasal passages. When the nerve endings are irritated they send messages to the brain which in turn tells the nose to secrete a watery fluid to help remove the irritant. At the same time it tells the lungs to fill up with air thereby causing the vocal cords to seal off the air passage to prevent air from escaping. Then the chest muscles tightens and compresses the air in the lungs and as such relaxes the vocal cords to let out the compressed air in the lungs forcefully through the nose to dislodge the unwanted irritant along with the watery liquid produced in the nose. Interestingly, all this happens in split seconds.
If one forcibly holds back a sneeze, the entire scenario described is interrupted and such interruption has been known to cause bleeding in the nose or send the irritant (dust or bacteria) into the sinuses and cause a spread of infection in the body.
In some extreme cases, the bones in and around the nose may have been fractured and the bones in the middle ear dislocated.
So always let out a good sneeze, if you find yourself in tight position make use of a protective cover. Your hands and handkerchiefs can serve such functions to avoid the spread of germs to people around.
