Lesson in sneezing for beginners

There has been quite a lot of sniping and sniping in our newsroom lately snubbed. Clearly that flu epidemic is still in full swing as the nets tangerines are flying around your ears and the boxes of tissues are in short supply. We have even stopped reacting to the sneezes that fly around your ears about 10 times in an hour on average. And so that's what I want to talk to you about. Sneezing, we all do it and, more importantly, we all do it differently. The silent sneeze, the very loud sneeze, the cough (hello Adeline) and the sneeze that is almost swallowed.

But how to sneeze is quite a thing. In fact, there are entire tutorials for it. Recently, a report flashed across the news about a British man who had severely damaged his pharynx by always holding his sneeze in. In fact, it was so bad that the best man had sneezed a hole in his throat that he could barely swallow and talk.

Now you indoor sneezers are bound to get the shakes because what are the chances that your throat will soon become a Swiss cheese? You sneeze because there is a stimulus in your airway that you need to get rid of. If you keep your nose and mouth closed, that air (at an average speed of 150 km per hour) has nowhere to go. So it will eventually damage the wall of your airways. The force of the air has to go somewhere, and preferably out, by keeping your mouth slightly open.

Wondering how best to do your sneeze now? See for yourself... Hatsjie.