So, as a result of having nothing to write about, I just thought I'd draw on a completely out-of-the-blue observation, which actually turned into quite an interesting research project! I seem to have caught practically every cold that's been going around recently, and apparently, you can tell quite a lot about someone just by the way they sneeze! I'm being deadly serious, psychologist and body language expert P. A. Wood created (wait for it..) the Achoo IQ. This is a scale on which every person can be placed on, purely according to their sneeze. Think for a moment, what does your sneeze sound like? I might be able to tell you something about yourself by the answer from that question. In my case, anyone that knows me will know that I will quite literally hold my breath for as long as humanly possible to avoid sneezing in public; I've never heard an elephant being strangled, but I'd imagine that's something like what I sound like! Right, so here goes;
There are four categories of sneezers, the 'nice' sneezer, the 'get it done' sneezer, the 'be right' sneezer and the 'enthusiastic' sneezer. (You know when you say a word too many times and it begins to sound wrong? Sneezer.)
- If you're a single sneezer that turns away when you sneeze, Wood would classify you as a "nice sneezer." These people are characterized as being warm, helpful, supportive and nurturing of others. (I find these people incredibly annoying, how they can maintain 100% dignity while I automatically lose all of mine the minute I get a cold.)
- Or are you the type to let a big loud sneeze out? These sneezers, or "get it done" sneezers, are found to be fast, decisive and to the point. They typically make the best leaders.
- Do you always keep tissues handy and cover your mouth when you feel a sneeze coming? These are the "be right" sneezers and are typically the careful, accurate, deep-thinking type.
- The last group are the "enthusiastic" sneezers, Wood said. These are the people with sneezes you notice -maybe it's particularly loud, or you sneeze about fifty million times in thirty seconds. The enthusiastic sneezers were found to be charismatic and social and have the ability to motivate others.
Two guesses where I am. Pretty sure I'd be an enthusiastic sneezer seeing as it's pretty hard NOT to notice when I'm about with a cold. But then, Dr Frederick Little of Boston University concluded that sneeze style is often genetic, so I've got my mum to blame for that one. From a psychology point of view though, I actually found this quite interesting and did quite a lot of reading on it. Might seem a little far-fetched, but my last blog post? All about taking some time out of everyday life and just finding something to do? Well, this week, this slightly random topic of sneezing crossed my mind earlier this week and so I decided to go for it, lucky you! Anything you've been wondering about? Go find out about it, you never know what you might find yourself blogging about before long! And, perhaps even stranger, that's what Patti Wood must have been doing, research on a wim, because why else would you devote your life to sneezes?
So, hopefully if nothing else, this has provided somewhat of a source of entertainment this Sunday night, and I'm sure I'll have something more meaningful to blog about next week - keep reading! Bear with me people, something will come along soon enough.
Over and out.
