The reason why you sneeze is that your body is trying to remove unwanted foreign objects and germs which are present in the nose so that your airways are cleansed. When you sneeze, the microscopic ‘hair’ within the nose receives a signal from the censors in the nose and the sinuses, telling it to move forward and remove all the bothersome particles. This ‘hair’ is also called ‘Cilium’, and its function is to protect the internal part of the nose.
The cilium has two functions; to move particles out of the nose or to guide them through the food pipe where the stomach acid will take care of the particles. These particles originate from the lungs. For the cilium to function, it needs mucus, and this is naturally found in the nose where about one litre is produced each day. Since these particles can move from one end of the room to the other very quickly, it is very important that you cover your mouth. The sneeze makes it very easy to spread diseases, so it should be prevented by covering the mouth. If you manage to cover your mouth, the particles will hit the hand instead, which you can wash quickly, thus avoiding the spread. Because of this, it is also very important to wash your hands initially after sneezing – remember, it is still saliva and mucus with germs hitting the hand.
To find out what happens after a sneeze, in which germs, snot and mucus are ejected, a research team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, conducted an experiment. They made a slow-motion video showing that the sneeze ‘drops’ are ejected out of the mouth in a turbulent cloud which grows and then fades as soon as you breathe in air from the surroundings. These drops fall to the ground after 1-2 meters, while the little drops remain in the air, as particles of the air itself. However, the shocking thing about the video turned out to be the fact that these drops could actually travel up to 8 meters by sneeze and 6 meters by cough, and as mentioned, these harmful particles remained in the air. So, this means that it is very important that you cover your mouth after each sneeze.
