Why bless you when you sneeze

Of course today we know that did not work. And unfortunately the plague went on to kill more than one million people in England alone. The other option is based on an idea that your soul was trying to escape when you sneezed. Great British Mag. These mental habits are turning you into a bitter person! How does your zodiac sign flirt?

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There was also a pervasive myth that the heart would briefly stop while sneezing, likely due to changes in blood flow that might cause a brief delay between heartbeats.

People may have said bless you to make sure the heart would continue beating rather than stop altogether, or as a form of congratulations: Bless you, Carl. Cultures who believed spirits could either be ejected or evil spirits transmitted during a sneeze may have also adopted the phrase to help ward off such exchanges. But there are plenty of fascinating guesses, and not surprisingly, most of them are based heavily on superstition.

The most popular theory is that it originated in Rome when the bubonic plague was ravaging Europe. Sneezing was one the plague's main symptoms, and it is believed that Pope Gregory I suggested that a tiny prayer in the form of saying, "God bless you" after a sneeze would protect the person from death.

Another, more superstitious theory, is that it stems from the ancient belief that a sneeze might accidentally expel the spirit from the body unless God blessed you and prevented it.