Speaker 1: Welcome to BrainStuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey BrainStuff, Lauren
Speaker 1: Vogelbaum here. Maybe you've just said something that didn't quite
Speaker 1: come out right to someone you were trying to impress.
Speaker 1: Maybe you tripped in the middle of a busy sidewalk.
Speaker 1: Maybe you've been called on unexpectedly in a meeting or classroom.
Speaker 1: You feel a sudden jolt as your heart rate increases
Speaker 1: and your cheeks begin to warm. You, friend, are embarrassed,
Speaker 1: and you're blushing because of it. We humans experience involuntary
Speaker 1: reactions to lots of emotional stimuli. You might sweat before
Speaker 1: you give a presentation, or jump or scream if startled.
Speaker 1: Blushing from embarrassment is governed by the same system that
Speaker 1: activates your fight-or-flight response, the sympathetic nervous system. This system
Speaker 1: is involuntary, meaning you don't actually have to think or
Speaker 1: even intend to carry out these processes. When you feel embarrassed,
Speaker 1: your body releases adrenaline. This hormone acts as a natural stimulant,
Speaker 1: speeding up your breathing and heart rate to prepare you
Speaker 1: to react to danger. Your pupils grow bigger, allowing you
Speaker 1: to take in as much visual information as possible, while
Speaker 1: your digestive process slows to redirect blood flow to your muscles.
Speaker 1: All of these effects account for that jolt you encounter
Speaker 1: when you feel embarrassment, the sort of rush you feel,
Speaker 1: the sudden sense of focus, and drop or butterflies in
Speaker 1: your stomach. Adrenaline also causes your blood vessels to dilate
Speaker 1: in order to improve blood flow and oxygen delivery. This
Speaker 1: is the case with blushing. The veins in your face,
Speaker 1: and sometimes your ears, neck, and upper chest, respond to
Speaker 1: a chemical signal that tells the veins to allow the
Speaker 1: adrenaline to do its magic. As a result, those veins dilate,
Speaker 1: allowing more blood to flow through them than usual. This
Speaker 1: reddened or darkened appearance is how the body responds to
Speaker 1: an embarrassing situation. Anything from receiving public criticism or praise,
Speaker 1: to watching a video of yourself, to spilling coffee on
Speaker 1: your crush. This fight-or-flight response sounds reasonable enough in general.
Speaker 1: We've all wished we could turn and walk out of
Speaker 1: the room and into the sea from embarrassment at some point.
Speaker 1: but it's an unusual response from your veins. Other types
Speaker 1: of blood vessels are responsive to adrenaline, but veins generally aren't.
Speaker 1: In other regions of your body, veins don't do much
Speaker 1: when adrenaline is released. The hormone has little or no
Speaker 1: effect on them. Blushing from embarrassment is a unique phenomenon.
Speaker 1: There are other means by which our cheeks become flushed,
Speaker 1: like drinking alcohol or eating a spicy dish, but only
Speaker 1: being embarrassed causes the type of blushing that's triggered by adrenaline.
Speaker 1: There has been some research into what's going on in
Speaker 1: our brains when we blush. Back in 2024, a group
Speaker 1: of researchers out of the Netherlands published a paper about
Speaker 1: an albeit small study in which they a. measured blushing
Speaker 1: via cheek temperature and b. observed participants' brains with an MRI,
Speaker 1: while each participant watched a video of themselves singing karaoke.
Speaker 1: The researchers found that the parts of the brain that
Speaker 1: activated during blushing indicated heightened visual attention and heightened emotional arousal.
Speaker 1: meaning that the blushing participants were paying closer attention to
Speaker 1: how they looked, and they felt sort of fraught about it,
Speaker 1: meaning that blushing may be an adrenal response to feeling
Speaker 1: exposed and vulnerable, just socially instead of physically. What the
Speaker 1: researchers didn't observe in blushers was increased activity in the
Speaker 1: parts of the brain that handled deeper reflections. The participants
Speaker 1: were not considering how their actions might be received and
Speaker 1: then blushing. It was a more immediate reaction to being
Speaker 1: perceived at all. But okay, what possible purpose could there
Speaker 1: be for more blood to flow through your cheeks when
Speaker 1: you feel embarrassed like this? Where did blushing come from evolutionarily?
Speaker 1: This is the sort of question that science has a
Speaker 1: hard time answering definitively, but researchers are working on it,
Speaker 1: and we have a good hypothesis. blushing has been determined
Speaker 1: to be universal among, as well as exclusive to, humans. So,
Speaker 1: it seems that we specifically developed a specific process that
Speaker 1: physically displays our embarrassment. The leading hypothesis goes that blushing
Speaker 1: evolved as a means of enforcing the social codes by
Speaker 1: which we humans must adhere in order for society to
Speaker 1: function in a smooth and friendly manner. By blushing when
Speaker 1: we're embarrassed, we're showing others that we recognize that we've
Speaker 1: just made a social misstep and that we feel real
Speaker 1: weird about it, which hopefully means that we'll try to
Speaker 1: avoid similar missteps in the future. Others who see us
Speaker 1: blushing after an awkward moment understand from experience that the
Speaker 1: feelings associated with it are unpleasant. In this regard, blushing
Speaker 1: may serve as a nonverbal, physical apology for our mistake.
Speaker 1: Some people get even more embarrassed after blushing over an
Speaker 1: embarrassing situation. This hypothesis would indicate that the blusher is
Speaker 1: actually socially skilled and empathetic, that they don't want to
Speaker 1: cause unintentional social or emotional harm. This empathy and social
Speaker 1: aptitude seems to develop in humans at an early age,
Speaker 1: around the time we begin to engage in social situations
Speaker 1: with people outside of our household and inner family group.
Speaker 1: By studying the development of this aptitude, psychologists found that
Speaker 1: blushing from embarrassment develops alongside our consciousness of others. This
Speaker 1: suggests that blushing has a purely social basis. Evolutionarily, blushing
Speaker 1: may have developed as a means for displaying regret over
Speaker 1: an insult to someone else, and thus to de-escalate the
Speaker 1: situation and prevent possible confrontation or violence. Other animals have
Speaker 1: developed ways of displaying calming signs to diffuse a tense
Speaker 1: moment too. Think about your dog rolling over and showing
Speaker 1: you their belly after being caught digging in the yard.
Speaker 1: Exposing their belly indicates that the dog is not in
Speaker 1: any way challenging you're upset at the situation. It's a
Speaker 1: demonstration that they understand that you're mad and want to
Speaker 1: smooth things over. And we humans do find it pretty
Speaker 1: difficult to continue being upset with a dog once they've
Speaker 1: rolled over and maybe given us some big eyes and
Speaker 1: a hopeful little tail wag. Of course, such signals can't
Speaker 1: be the same in every type of animal. If a
Speaker 1: cat rolls over and shows you its belly, for example,
Speaker 1: it's more likely to be a sign of relaxation and trust,
Speaker 1: and or a threat that they'll hind kick you into
Speaker 1: next Sunday if you try anything. If a cat wants
Speaker 1: to de-escalate, they might slow blink at you to demonstrate
Speaker 1: a low threat level, or headbutt you or vocalize as
Speaker 1: a sign of your familial bond. After all, we wouldn't
Speaker 1: be able to tell if either a dog or a
Speaker 1: cat were blushing. But in humans, with our skin-forward faces
Speaker 1: a focal point of expression, blushing seems to be what
Speaker 1: we landed on to make a bad situation better. If
Speaker 1: you hate it when you blush, unfortunately, there's not a
Speaker 1: lot you can do to avoid it entirely. It is
Speaker 1: an involuntary process. It does seem to come at precisely
Speaker 1: the worst moment. You're already wishing you could melt away,
Speaker 1: and suddenly your face is doing this weird thing that
Speaker 1: could only possibly draw more attention to you. It may
Speaker 1: be comforting to consider that the situation usually feels worse
Speaker 1: than it is. Everyone understands that mistakes and self-consciousness happen.
Speaker 1: As a performer, one of the most useful things I
Speaker 1: was ever told is that your audience is rooting for
Speaker 1: you to succeed. People generally want other people to have
Speaker 1: a nice time. In the moment, you can try exercises
Speaker 1: like reframing, that is, consciously shifting your thought process from
Speaker 1: something like, wow, this is mortifying, to something more like,
Speaker 1: this is going to be a hilarious story later. And
Speaker 1: box breathing, for example, can help calm your nervous system.
Speaker 1: Box breathing is a type of intentional breath exercise where
Speaker 1: you do equal counts of, say, five seconds each, on
Speaker 1: an inhale, a hold, an exhale, and a hold. This
Speaker 1: can help you sort of reset your system back to normal.
Speaker 1: If you find yourself experiencing a lot of embarrassment and
Speaker 1: anxiety about it, or a lot of social anxiety in general,
Speaker 1: talk to a healthcare provider about it. I know that
Speaker 1: social anxiety makes it hard to talk to people about
Speaker 1: social anxiety, but suffering is also hard. There are lots
Speaker 1: of options for talk therapy and or medication that can
Speaker 1: make life easier and really open up your world. And
Speaker 1: there's nothing wrong with getting help. Regardless of what proves
Speaker 1: to be the ultimate explanation for why we blush, humans
Speaker 1: have developed an aptitude for forgiveness alongside our physical response
Speaker 1: to embarrassment. Small studies have shown that people trust blushers
Speaker 1: more than non-blushers after both have made a faux pas.
Speaker 1: And if you've accidentally insulted someone, a direct apology will
Speaker 1: probably make both of you feel better. The next time
Speaker 1: you experience an awkward situation of your own making and
Speaker 1: feel your blood rushing, just remember, this too shall pass.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is based on the article, Why Do People Blush?
Speaker 1: on HowStuffWorks.com, written by Josh Clark. BrainStuff is a production
Speaker 1: of iHeart Podcasts in partnership with HowStuffWorks.com and is produced
Speaker 1: by Tyler Klang. For more shows from iHeart Podcasts, visit
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.