This is the REAL reason we say ‘bless you’ when someone sneezes... and it's not because of the Plague

THERE are some things we do in everyday life which become part of the furniture, even if we don’t know why.

Saying “bless you” when someone sneezes has to be up there with the best of them.

It’s a rarity to let a sneeze shoot out without someone uttering the words, and quite often you won’t even know the person who says it.

OK so it’s polite, but do you know why we actually do this?


Well, there isn’t one set answer because there are actually quite a few reasons for the phrase.

First up is a pretty spellbinding one – apparently some people thought you ran the risk of sneezing out your soul whenever an attack happened, so saying “bless you” offered some protection.
This dates back a long time too, and comes from a period before people realised nose tickles were just an issue with the body.

There was also a line of thought that the devil could steal someone’s soul when they sneezed.

Spooky stuff, especially when teamed with another line of thought which feared evil spirits used these moments to rush into the body.

This basically means you are in for something horrific either way, so obviously people jumped on the “bless you” bandwagon.

If that tiny phrase can save you from an eternity being ruled by the devil, then why not give it a go?
Next we have Pope Gregory the Great to thank, according to some.

He became pope after the man before him was killed by the plague in the 590s, and it’s thought he used to say “God bless you” whenever someone sneezed around him.

The idea was that he was hoping someone would be healthy and the bodily function wasn’t a sign that they’d caught the deadly illness.

So far so good, this is all pretty believable.

But hold on to your hats for the next one...
There was once a school of thought that people actually DIED for a brief moment when they sneezed.

Uttering “bless you” apparently encouraged the heart to start beating again, or was a kind of very English and downbeat “good job on not croaking” when the person was still alive.

Yes, who needs medical intervention when you can just say a quick phrase to make someone well?

Less excitingly, it might just be a way for people to remark on a sneeze.

We’ll take demons stealing souls and paralysed hearts over that one.