Kellon from Pullman asks, why can’t we keep our eyes open when we sneeze?

Kellon, you have probably heard that we close our eyes when we sneeze so our eyes don’t pop out of our head. There are a couple weird musculature issues that cause the eye muscles to be floppy, but short of those, the amount of trauma needed to cause an eye to pop out is much greater than a simple sneeze, so no, even if you could keep your eyes open when you sneeze, they wouldn’t pop out. The reason we close our eyes during a sneeze is probably a protective one. When you have stuff flying out of your nose and possibly mouth and your head is moving quickly, who knows what may fly into your eyes so the brain shuts your lids. This response probably comes from the same area of the brain that keeps our heart beating and breathing regulated. Some instincts we can learn to override, like touching your eye when inserting contact lenses, but sometimes we just have to do what our brain tells us. Thanks for the question.