They're all gonna laugh at you!

Happy Friday! I don’t know about all of you, but this week was FAR too long! I’m totes ready for a long weekend.

Today I have another request – from a college love of mine. She asks, “Well, I was just thinking of one too. It might be boring, but I thought of it when I read the tanning one. Why do you blush when you are embarrassed or on the spot or nervous or whatever?” Honey, it is never boring when I explain it! Blushing is actually a kind of strange thing that humans do. Let’s set the foundation for a good blush… (Hahaha! Get it? Makeup joke)

You are invited to dinner at the Beckham’s house with Oprah, Beyonce, Zac Efron and Wendy Williams. OMG, this is my dream dinner. I could die happy after this meal. Imagine sitting there and all of a sudden you sneeze so hard you fart and spit up all over yourself. Most people would turn bright red out of embarrassment (I would fall over and die). So what just happened?

The minute you get embarrassed your body switches into a fight-or-flight mode (the sympathetic neuronal response). This is a completely involuntary nervous system response and that means you cannot control when you get embarrassed or when you blush. Once your body is in this state, adrenaline is released. Adrenaline is going to rush through your body and cause your blood vessels to loosen up and get bigger (vasodilation) as a way to increase oxygen supply to your muscles. The more blood, the redder you look. And just like that, you have blushing! This seems straightforward, but with this explanation your entire body should turn red. Why is it only your face (mainly your cheeks) do when you are embarrassed?

Your blushing region has a relatively unique structure. Your facial skin has more capillaries in it than other places on your body. There are more, and larger than normal, blood vessels in the face. These blood vessels are also much closer to the surface of your skin. In the presence of adrenaline, all of these will dilate and will appear much redder than they would anywhere else in your body. Another quirky thing about dilation of the face is that the veins in your face will also dilate. Adrenaline does not cause vein dilation anywhere else in the body except the face. Obviously evolution wants you to blush when embarrassed (come on, you know this question is coming), but why?

Simply put, no one knows. Why should we have a visible extra blood flow to our cheeks when embarrassed? The theory I like most says blushing was created as a way of showing social intelligence. It is a visual to others letting them know that we know we did something inappropriate/not socially acceptable. A visual, “I’m sorry” can help avoid fights. Some support for this theory is that humans do not normally start blushing or understand being embarrassed until around kindergarten age. This is the time when children start to gain social intelligence and understand being judged by others.

Honey, I popped out of the womb judging and I am still going strong.