Eleven surprising sneezing facts

It may sound strange but some people get into a routine with their sneezing. Perhaps once when you get into the car, but only if it's sunny outside, not when it's cloudy. Put a piece of mint chewing gum into your mouth. For some, that’s good for another sneeze.

Many people sneeze at peculiar moments -- such as after exercise, when plucking their eyebrows, in the sunshine, or after sex.

Here are the reasons why they sneeze at odd times, and why all of us sneeze in the first place.

Eleven surprising sneezing facts

1. "Sneezes start in your nerves", says Dr Neil Kao, an allergy and asthma specialist.

Everyone's nervous system is basically wired in the same way, Kao explains. But signals travelling along nerves can take slightly different paths to and from the brain, resulting in different sneeze scenarios from person to person.

"It's a nerve transmission that tells your brain something is in your nose that needs to come out", Kao tells us.

2. Sneezing helps keep your body safe. "Sneezing is an important part of the immune process, helping to keep us healthy and sniffle-free", Kao says.

Sneezes protect your body by clearing the nose of bacteria and viruses, explains Kao. When something enters your nose or you encounter a trigger that sets off the "sneeze centre" in your brain, located in the lower brain stem, signals are rapidly sent to tightly close your throat, eyes and mouth. Next, your chest muscles vigorously contract, and then your throat muscles quickly relax. As a result, air -- along with saliva and mucous -- is forced out of your mouth and nose. Voila, you have sneezed.

3. Sneezes are speedy. "Sneezes travel at about 100 miles per hour", says Patti Wood, author of Success Signals: Understanding Body Language. She adds that a single sneeze can send 100,000 germs into the air.

4. Plucking your eyebrows may make you sneeze. Plucking may set off a nerve in your face that supplies your nasal passages. As a result, you sneeze.

5. You don't sneeze in yoursleep. When you sleep, so do your sneezing nerves -- meaning that you usually do not sneeze when you are asleep.

6. Your workout may make you sneeze. "Exercise can make you sneeze", Kao says. "You hyperventilate when you're over-exerted and, as a result, your nose and mouth start to dry up. So your nose reacts by starting to drip, making you sneeze."

7. The longest sneezing spree: 978 days, a record set by Donna Griffiths of Worcestershire, according to the Guinness Book of World Records.

8. Sunshine may make you sneeze. "Bright sunlight causes one out of three people to sneeze", Wood says. "The light sneezers are called 'photics', from the Greek meaning ‘of light'. In fact, light sensitivity is an inherited trait -- just one more thing we can blame on our parents."