The Complexity of a Sneeze

With 46,769 steps taken this week, I have now recorded 662,472 steps since Memorial Day.

I didn’t get as many steps in this week as I usually do. The biggest reason for this is that I was feeling kind of “punky” all week. I fought a sore throat for several days and woke up with a full-fledged cold Sunday morning, complete with body aches and fever. I was sneezing and coughing. My nose ran almost constantly. I laid flat on my back for hours at a time, almost unable to move. The thought of eating seemed too big a chore.

I can’t remember the last time I was sick, so I was both surprised and bewildered by the symptoms.

All the sneezing got me to thinking about…well, sneezing.

Have you ever thought about what a gift sneezing is? Was God genius or what when He thought to incorporate this feature into our bodies’ cleansing systems?

Much like a temperamental computer, our noses require a "reboot" when they’re overwhelmed. When a sneeze works properly, it resets the environment within nasal passages so "bad" particles breathed in through the nose can be trapped and then eliminated.

A sneeze is the protective reflex that clears the upper airway of irritants, including viruses, bacteria, and pollutants.  Every time we breathe in through our noses, thousands of minute particles enter, many of which are stopped by the cilia, or tiny hairs, lining our nostrils. Further inside, the nose contains shelf-like structures called turbinates. If viruses or pollutants continue to irritate, we sneeze in attempts to expel them.

A message is sent to a special part of our brains called the sneeze center. This sneeze center sends a message to all the muscles that have to work together, synchronized perfectly, to complete the amazingly complicated process. The abdominal, chest, and diaphragm muscles contract as do the muscles that control our vocal cords and the muscles in the back of our throats.

Our eyes know to close, and the palate in our mouths know to rise as we draw our breath and expel thousands of bacteria-filled droplets at a speed of 70 to 100 miles per hour.

Maybe it’s the cold medicine talking, but I am just amazed at the way the Lord has wired us. He seemed to think of everything as He created us. If He took this much care in designing something like a sneeze, imagine the care He took in forming our souls, our ability to reason, our ability to communicate. It’s amazing to me, mind-boggling even.

Can I say it any better than Psalm 139 (NIV)?

¹³ For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
¹⁷ How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
How vast is the sum of them!

Enjoy your day. Enjoy this blog.