Behold the power of sneeze

Once thought to be an act of sexual ecstasy, a sneeze is one of the most powerful actions humans engage in.

Traveling a distance of up to 12 feet, sneezes have been clocked at 103.6 miles per hour. But the power of a sneeze can be harmful.

Sneezes, also known as sternutation, easily can spread bacteria and illness. Although sneezing has multiple causes - including allergies - certain smells and strong lights, many can be treated with medicine, said Brenda Higgins, family nurse practitioner and director of the Student Health Center. The nose houses about 5 million scent receptors, so it is not uncommon for different people to have certain objects or scents that trigger a sneeze, according to the Library of Congress.

"Sneezing is kind of an involuntary response," Higgins said. "It happens without us choosing to do so, and normally, it is in response to some kind of a stimulus that's irritating to us."

Even if a person is not sick or contagious, sneezing could spread germs to other individuals, causing them to get sick, especially if they are susceptible and already have a weak immune system, Higgins said.

"The best way to prevent it is just covering [your nose] when you sneeze," she said. "And new recommendations that have come out just in the last few years kind of encourages us to sneeze into our upper arm or sleeve rather than into our hands because we so often use our hands."

This is a fairly new suggestion that people are starting to pick up on, but not everyone realizes or has been informed that it actually is better than using one's hands to block a sneeze, Higgins said.

"The most important thing is frequent hand washing because that's where we pick up most germs, is on our hands, and also where we spread [them] to other people," she said.

It also helps if people know how to wash their hands properly, Higgins said. This includes washing them with soap and water and using a paper towel to turn off the faucet once one's hands are clean, she said.

An alternative to constantly washing hands is carrying antibacterial wipes or hand sanitizer, which some people prefer, Higgins said. It's especially important for people to keep their hands clean when working around kids or sick people or in public places like a library or computer lab where multiple sets of hands are touching the same equipment all day, she said.

"On campuses like ours, right now, there are a lot of respiratory infections going around, and I don't think it's a bad idea to use your elbow and hit the handicapped door opener rather than using the handles to open the door," Higgins said. "It's a reasonable way to cut back on transmission of illness if you think about how many people are holding onto that door handle several times a day."

Another way to minimize the spread of bacteria is to keep sneezes away from other people's food.

Mainstreet Market and other cafeterias on campus have sneeze guards to prevent food from being contaminated, said Mike Koenig, manager of Mainstreet Market.

"The sneeze guards are a physical barrier between the food and the offender trying to sneeze toward it," he said. "We got to have the physical barrier though, because otherwise, we'd have to use chemicals, and chemicals and food don't really go together."

Employees who work around food are required to wash their hands frequently throughout the day and use lotion to keep their hands moisturized, Koenig said. If someone's hands get too dry, it is easier for him or her to catch germs or for infection to occur, he said. Koenig said he supplies his employees with gloves with aloe in them during the harsher, winter weather.

"People get sick all year long," he said. "So it's something for the food industry we always have to be on top of."

Senior Neal Haley knows what it is like to work around kids in a close setting. Haley is one of several members of Alpha Phi Omega who volunteer at the YMCA on Mondays and Wednesdays. The group of students spends an hour playing ga-ga, an Israeli variation of dodgeball, with children at the center.

Although he only has gotten sick once since volunteering at the YMCA, Haley said he knows others who have picked up the flu more often. He said he realizes this is easy to do when interacting with children but that the volunteers don't think about contracting germs at the time.

"We're volunteers, so I'm not getting paid to tell them what to do," he said. "As a kid, you're supposed to have structure, and it feels like we should give them sort of structure in the hour that they're there."

Even though he doesn't make it a point to teach the kids at the YMCA about proper sneezing etiquette, it is important for adults to teach children appropriate manners because sometimes it's not common sense, Haley said.

"I was told always to cover your mouth when you're coughing or sneezing, or any of those common things," he said. "But it's obviously not a universal thing because kids still go around and just let [their sneezes] go into the air and hope nobody gets sick."

Haley said it is inconsiderate and impolite of people to not cover their noses when they feel a sneeze coming on, especially in a college setting where most people live in close quarters.

"Living in a dorm is almost like being at the YMCA with a bunch of kids because diseases can spread fairly quickly," he said. "Just use common sense - wash your hands [and] cover your mouth. Just act how you would want to be treated. Don't blow your nose in somebody's face, and act courteous."

In light of acting respectfully, Higgins said it is nice to utter a "bless you" to someone who sneezes. The origin of this phrase has a lot of history.

"From what I read, it dates back to the days when people thought that when you sneezed, your heart actually stopped beating for a little while and so you were momentarily dead," Higgins said. "And saying, 'bless you' was because [you were] dead and that so hopefully you'd come back to life. So there's some superstition behind it, but I think it's kind of common courtesy."