God Bless You

“Achoo!”

“God bless you.”

“Thank you.”

Many of us are compelled to say “Bless you” or “God bless you” after someone sneezes. Out of some psychological push, we have to acknowledge their involuntary bodily expulsion with a blessing.

I never knew why; I was just taught that it was polite to say a blessing after someone sneezed. But why is it? Why are we granting a God-ordained blessing to an involuntarily bodily action? Where did this come from? Why did it start? Because of Satan.

Or at least that was the reason around 590 AD. Can you believe that in 2021 we’re still saying “God bless you” because Pope Gregory the Great believed it would stave off death? Sneezing and coughing were early warning signs of the plague, so he believed blessing someone in this way would prevent death and decreed everyone must do so. It wasn’t just him — in ancient times, people believed that sneezing would allow evil spirits roaming about to enter your body and saying “God bless you” kept those evil spirits out.

They believed a sneeze separates a soul from their body (which makes sense, sneezes are pretty damn violent). To prevent Satan from stealing the soul, “God bless you” releases the soul from Satan’s clutches and returns the soul to its rightful owner. Some believed a person’s soul lived in the form of air in their head, not their entire body, and thought a sneeze could accidentally expel their soul from their body, so saying “God bless you” prevented it from occurring.

Another similar, yet slightly different, take on supernatural sneezing comes from ancient cultures believing that bodies hold evil spirits and that sneezing forces these spirits out of our bodies, endangering others for whom these spirits might try to enter. The blessing was uttered to protect the person sneezing and others around them who might fall prey to these released evil spirits. However, if you say “Excuse me” right after you sneeze, you’ve protected yourself from any of the evil spirits leaving your body or clutching your soul and there’s no need for someone else to say thank you. Isn’t that interesting?

It seems a little funny but attributing unexplainable human experiences to divine intervention is not (un)common. Take twin babies — science uncovers more information about twins all the time but back in the day, they were viewed with contempt. In ancient times, the Yoruba ethnic group of Nigeria viewed twins with suspicion and would even sacrifice them. Now, one in 11 Yoruba people are twins and the normalized belief is that the firstborn twin is the “younger of the two”. This baby is believed to be the one the second-born twin sent out first to scout the world so, in actuality, the second-born twin is the “senior” twin.

It’s all very fascinating but anti-climactic because, in reality, sneezes are simply an automatic nerve reflex. There is no supernatural intervention involved; although, fun fact, 18% to 35% of the population sneeze when suddenly exposed to bright light. Another fun fact is that sneezing involves nerve endings that are activated while awake, so we can’t sneeze while asleep. Also, sneezing can be triggered while plucking our eyebrows because the action irritates our facial nerve endings, sending an impulse to the nasal nerve. All very scientific — alas, no evil spirits at play.

In a globalized society, exposed to a variety of cultures, the question now stands whether saying “God bless you” can be trained out of us. For those who do not worship God or any deity, saying “God bless you” can be quite triggering (pun intended). Many people have opted to train themselves into saying “Gesundheit” or simply “Bless you”, while other cultures respond with something more culturally traditional — like the Greeks and Romans that respond with “Banish the Omen”, or the Hindus that say “Live” when sneezing and respond by saying “With you”.

I bet you won’t think about sneezing the same when you hear “God bless you.” Will you continue to say “God bless you” or “Bless you” when someone sneezes? Or will you opt for another phrase? Or will you try to quell the impulse and not say anything at all?