..is it true that "god bless you" is derived from the fact that your heart skips a beat when you sneez?
397425
In English-speaking countries, it is common for at least one person to say "Bless you" after someone sneezes. The traditional explanation for the custom is that it began literally as a blessing. Pope Gregory I the Great (540-604 AD) ascended to the Papacy just in time for the start of the plague in 590 AD (his successor succumbed to it). To combat the plague Gregory ordered litanies, processions and unceasing prayer for God's intercession. When someone sneezed, they were immediately blessed ("God bless you!") in the hope that they would not subsequently develop the plague.
188487
In the old days it was belived that when a person sneezed then they were expeling a demond from their body.  It was a common proper way to respond to a sneeze, blessing the person who had desposed of the demond.
970529
Other explanations are based on superstitions and urban legends about sneezing and what a sneeze entails. Some well known superstitions that may have contributed to bringing "bless you" into common use are:\n\nThe heart stops when you sneeze (it doesn't), and the phrase "bless you" is meant to ensure the return of life or to encourage your heart to continue beating. \nA sneeze is the expulsion of some sort of evil, and the phrase is meant to ward off the evil's re-entry. \nYour soul can be thrown from your body when you sneeze, and saying "bless you" prevents your soul from being stolen by Satan or some evil spirit. Thus, "bless you" or "God bless you" is used as a sort of shield against evil. \nA sneeze is good luck and saying "bless you" is no more than recognition of the sneezer's luckiness. \nAlternatively, it may be possible that the phrase began simply as a response for an event that wasn't well understood at the time.\n\nAnother urban legend states that you cannot open your eyes while you sneeze, or if you manage to your eyes will pop out. Both of the statements are untrue.
164902
people say god bless u b,cos ur heart wil stop for a sec while sneezing.
354048
I have the feeling sometimes that my heart "skips" a beat.  It's like thump, thump, thump......thump.  I asked my doctor about it, he checked things out with an EKG, etc...and said that it is most likely just normal for me.  It can be brought on by periods of anxiety or stress...try decreasing caffeine.  BUT MOST IMPORTATNLY, IF YOU HAVEN'T CHECKED WITH A DOCTOR YET...DO SO, MAKE SURE ITS NORMAL FOR YOU.
461348
Yes, that is why people say "God bless you" after you sneeze.
622343
Its custom and considered mannerly.\n\nOriginaly, if a virgin sneezed three times without being blessed, the Faery folk could take her.
642073
Yes. Sadly it was the last time my Father left for the Hospital. God told me,get to the hospital to say GOOD BYE,this will be the last chance to let him know you love him: I was only at his bed side a few min. Told him it was OK,that I was there,and that I loved him,(even from a coma) right after the words left my mouth the heart monitor went flat line. I am thankful for Gods letting me know in time to say good bye to Daddy.
52464
The custom of saying "God bless you" after a sneeze was begun literally as a blessing. Pope Gregory the Great (540-604 AD) ascended to the Papacy just in time for the start of the plague (his successor succumbed to it). Gregory (who also invented the ever-popular Gregorian chant) called for litanies, processions and unceasing prayer for God's help and intercession. Columns marched through the streets chanting, "Kyrie Eleison" (Greek for "Lord have mercy"). When someone sneezed, they were immediately blessed ("God bless you!") in the hope that they would not subsequently develop the plague. All that prayer apparently worked, judging by how quickly the plague of 590 AD diminished. \n\nThe connection of sneezing to the plague is not the first association of sneezing with death. According to Man, Myth, and Magic: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Mythology, Religion and the Unknown, many cultures, even some in Europe, believe that sneezing expels the soul--the "breath of life"--from the body.  That doesn't seem too far-fetched when you realize that sneezing can send tiny particles speeding out of your nose at up to 100 miles per hour! \n\nWe know today, of course, that when you sneeze, your heart doesn't stop, nor will your eyes pop out if you can keep them open (www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_30 4.html), nor does your soul get expelled. What does get expelled are hundreds upon thousands of microscopic germs. The current advice when you sneeze is to cover your mouth with your arm rather than your hand. That way, all those germs won't be on your hands when you touch the countless things you're going to touch in the course of the day (don't tell us; we don't want to know).
280435
If your heart stops your dead or in cardiac-arrest, plain and simple. Sneezes increase the pressure in your chest and change blood flow, causing the heart to "flutter" a little bit. When u sneeze your heart doesnt stop or pause or anything, it may speed up, but stopin is a negative. \n\nThe "bless you" thing came from the plague, when people sneezed it was a sign of the plague. They said "bless you" so that incase that u didnt make it, you would still go to heaven after u bit the dust.\n\nFinal Answer: Hearts dont stop from sneezing. "Bless you" is said from the days of the plague.
389251
I don't think so, and I've never heard this before.  I have heard that your heart stops momentarily when you sneeze though.
1049826
It is a superstition.  People used to believe that the devil could enter you when you sneezed.  God Bless You was a way for others to try to help prevent that.
375161
In a word, no, your heart does not stop when you sneeze. From my perspective, it is hard to even imagine what this would mean. A sneeze itself is really a very brief event, occurring in a shorter time then a heartbeat. Of course, there is the building up to the sneeze (the "ah" of the "ah-choo"), but the heart certainly does not stop beating because of this ah-ing. Check your pulse next time to prove this to yourself.\n\nAs I answer this question, I am trying to imagine just how the heart might even "know" that you are sneezing. The heart beats because a small part of it called the SA node has a "pacemaker" activity. What this means is that there is a type of electrical cycle going on that triggers beats roughly once every second. Sneezing does not change this electrical cycle, so the heart keeps beating. Said a different way, the muscle of your heart is a big mass of electrically active tissue, and this electrical activity will not stop because of a sneeze, or anything else for that matter.\n\nAnd yet, a sneeze is definitely a complex cardiovascular event. As you "ah" and "choo", you significantly change the pressure inside your chest, which in turn affects blood flow and thus the beating of the heart. Still further, I assume that a sneeze involves a significant activation of certain pathways of the "autonomic" (roughly means automatic) nervous system. These also innervate the heart and do affect the frequency and other aspects of the heartbeat.\n\nSo MAYBE the rapid culmination of these inputs OCCASIONALLY causes the heart to "skip a beat" after a sneeze. Notice I did not say "stop". We all experience skipped beats once in a while, some more than others. You may notice it as a "fluttering" in your chest, a sensation that generally evokes a bit of anxiety. What happens is that there is occasionally a discoordination of the normally organized pathways of electrical activity in the heart. Sometimes one part of the heart does not conduct the beat appropriately, or more commonly, another part actually manages to beat ahead of schedule, thus throwing the whole beat off. Either way, you get one beat that does not occur correctly. But all this means is that you have to wait for the beginning of the next electrical cycle to come around, at which time a normal, organized beat will occur (assuming that we are talking about a normal heart!). You see, the heart didn’t stop, really, since the electrical cycle was still ongoing. It just got out of synch for a while. Again, I am not actually aware that this happens with any increased frequency after a sneeze, but I suppose it is possible.\n\nTom Wilson, MD PhD \n\nhttp://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/mar98/890925984.An.r.html
498901
It's not. Or more accurately, I'm almost certain it's not. I myself get that when I sneeze hard, it's just body's reflex to the sneeze. I did have lab testes done, and I was 100% fine.
960883
'It is unclear, but scientists theorize that we close our eyes when we sneeze to protect them. We may be protecting our eyes from microorganisms and particles from our sneezes," But it could also be simply because a sneeze is a kind of bodywide reflex in which a lot of muscles contract, not just in the nose and throat but also those in the diaphragm, the abdomen, thighs, back, even sphincters (which is why some people with stress incontinence may urinate slightly when they sneeze).\n\nResearchers aren't sure exactly why the sneeze reflex happens, but whatever neurological message tells the eyes to close probably comes from a primitive part of the brain called the medulla oblongata in the brain stem.  And, it's not just an irritation in the nose that can trigger a sneeze; some people, probably because of genetics, have a photic reflex, which makes them sneeze in response to sudden, bright light.\n\nAnd, in case you were wondering about that old wives' tale about the heart skipping a beat when you sneeze, rest assured: It doesn't, though it may pause for a fraction of a second before resuming its normal rhythm.  That pause is believed to occur due to a change in intra-thoracic pressure, or pressure in the chest, when you sneeze. That pressure may stimulate the vagus nerve, which in turn slows the heart rate down for a brief moment.\n\nThis is not dangerous.   But it's believed that people began saying ''God bless you" when a person sneezes because they believed that, in that brief moment, you were between heaven and hell, and, if you were blessed, you'd be saved from damnation.
485432
Claim:   The origin of saying "Bless you!" when someone sneezes stems from an ancient desire to safeguard the sneezer's soul or to commend the dying to the mercy of God. \nStatus:   Undetermined. \n\nOrigins:   It's expected  we'll say "Bless you!" (or "God bless!") when someone nearby sneezes, but does anyone really know why we do this? Are we trying to protect the sneezers from evil spirits? Are we fending off the Devil? Is this a remnant of an ancient recognition that sneezers aren't long for this world, thus we commend their souls to God even as we wash our hands of them? Are we congratulating them on their impending good luck? (As silly as this may sound now, sneezing was at one long-ago time seen as a fortuitous portent.) \n\nSome questions, no matter how simple, don't have one knowable answer. Though a number of "explanations" exist for this custom, nothing points to any one of them being its origin. \n\nCommon among these explanations are: \n\n\nAt one time people believed a man's soul could be inadvertently thrust from his body by an explosive sneeze, thus "Bless you!" was a protective oath uttered to safeguard the temporarily expelled and vulnerable soul from being snatched up by Satan (who was always lurking nearby). The purpose of the oath was to cast a temporary shield over the flung-out soul which would protect it just long enough to regain the protection of the corporeal body. \n\nConversely, the sneeze itself was the expulsion of a demon or evil spirit which had taken up residence in a person. Therefore, although the "Bless you!" was again a protective charm meant to protect the sneezer from evil, in this version it was meant to ward off the re-entry of an evil spirit which a tormented soul had just rid itself of. \n\nThe heart was believed to momentarily stop during a sneeze (it doesn't), thus the "Bless you!" was uttered either as a supplication for life to return or as a congratulation upon its successful restart. \n\nOthers claim an association of the practice with particular dire diseases (most often the bubonic plague, or "Black Death," as it is sometimes known). They say an infected person's sneeze was sure sign he'd soon be pushing up daisies, thus the "Bless you!" was intended as a benediction to the nearly-departed, a way of commending his soul to the care of God now that he was beyond the help of anything in the mortal world. \n\nYet other folks echo the theme of other superstitions about sneezes, that these expulsions are either in themselves lucky or foretell good fortune coming the sneezer's way. For them, the "Bless you!" is a recognition of incoming good luck, possibly even an attempt on the blesser's part to attract a bit of it to himself. \n\nFinally, some see the sneeze as a blessing bestowed by the sneezer upon the sneezed-upon. Answering a sneeze with "Bless you!" is seen as nothing more remarkable than replying "Good morning!" to the person who had just greeted you with the same phrase. \nSo many explanations -- each deeply believed -- for such a simple and often unquestioned practice. And we'll never know which one is right. \n\nWe look to what has been recorded about this practice of blessing a sneezer for any clues to the reasons that prompted its origin. Once again, we are disappointed; although the practice is old enough for mention of it to surface in ancient writings (the earliest from 77 A.D., the generation right after Christ), no one apparently deemed it noteworthy enough to explain why anyone would think to do this. By the time anyone thought to question the reason for the custom, blessing people when they sneeze had already been deeply ingrained in our evolving culture for century upon century. At this point, although folks were quick to assert various reasons for these oaths (talking through one's hat is not
20950
The custom of saying "God bless you" after a sneeze was begun literally as a blessing. Pope Gregory the Great (540-604 AD) ascended to the Papacy just in time for the start of the plague (his successor succumbed to it). When someone sneezed, they were immediately blessed ("God bless you!") in the hope that they would not subsequently develop the plague. All that prayer apparently worked, judging by how quickly the plague of 590 AD diminished.  \n\nIt is also interesting to note that it is impossible to close your eyes when you sneeze, so everytime I sneeze, I try to say a little prayer.