Most horror stories have a lot of blood, but this one has a cruel and merciless amount. It has so much blood that tourniquets and perma-savior Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson are rendered useless because the blood in this story doesn’t spill out of our dying bodies in buckets and splash onto the cold tile floor like we wish it would.
Instead it just forms deep, pernicious pools in our cheeks and reddens our faces with the heat of a thousand suns until the bad guy in the story turns to us and says, “Aw, you’re blushing!” or “Oh my God, you’re so red.”
If you don’t get why blushing in a business meeting is the stuff of nightmares, then you’re not a heavy blusher. Must be nice.
For the rest of us, we feel betrayed by our bodies when we blush, our insides heating up and flushing our skin with a telltale redness.
Lily McCausland, 23, a freelance production assistant, put it best when she told me: “The physical nature of my blushing truly feels like a furnace turning on. My face gets prickly at first and then, depending on the severity of the emotion, full-sunburn red. I always know when I’m about to blush because it always comes right at the moment I need it to not.”
That’s the thing about blushing: it happens when you really wish it wouldn’t. And then it gets worse because you’re thinking about it. And then you want to disappear or have Mr. Johnson swoop in and pull you to safety.
But, and this is the most unfair part, you’re already safe!
Generally speaking, there’s nothing dangerous (let alone life-threatening) about everyday situations that make blushers blush, which means that there’s no reason for our sympathetic nervous system to fire up and increase blood flow. And yet.
Why Me?!
Dr. Tanya Azarani, M.D., an adult psychiatrist and psychotherapist in Brooklyn, explained in an email that blushing is part of our body’s fight-or-flight response and it happens when we feel feelings of shame, self-consciousness, or anger, which usually occurs when we feel we’ve been caught violating social norms.
“When a real or imagined social transgression triggers feelings of shame, adrenaline is released from the adrenal glands causing vasodilation of the blood vessels in the face and neck. As more blood flushes the face, a red complexion and the sensation of warmth develops,” she wrote.
And there’s a scientific reason that we blush more when we know we’re blushing: “The more anxious we feel about our blushing, the more neurologically aroused we become, and the more neurologically aroused we are, the more we blush, leading to a vicious self-perpetuating cycle.”
If you blush a lot and it causes emotional distress and interferes with your daily life, it could be a sign of a deeper social anxiety disorder. Dr. Azarani explained that “people with social anxiety disorder fear social situations where they may be judged, assume that their actions will lead to humiliation, and often avoid social interactions.”
So if you blush when public speaking and/or when you push the door when it says pull, don’t worry — there are some things that might help you feel more in control of your body.
Some Tips (A Few Things That Are In Your Control)
Blushing is more pronounced during adolescence, which is why we seasoned adult blushers have so many home remedies: We’ve had many years to hone our techniques.
We’ve got our crew necks and turtlenecks (for those whose blush comes with the bonus neck flush); we’ve got our green concealer, which is a cosmetics strategy that hides facial redness; we’ve got our long hair, which can be draped over reddened cheeks; we’ve got our blue, green, black, brown and gray clothing, which downplays redness; we’ve got small, low noise fans on our desk; and we’ve got our trusty water bottle from which we can sip cool water and hold up against our cheeks when no one is looking. And we have our therapists.
“Ultimately, cognitive behavioral therapy is the best treatment for pathological blushing,” Dr. Azarani said. It’s also best for treating erythrophobia, which is the fear of blushing, and treating social anxiety disorders.
Cognitive behavioral therapy, or C.B.T., is a common form of talk therapy. For blushers, Dr. Azarani explained that C.B.T. can help you “look at the relationship between your worries about blushing, your thoughts, and the way you behave when anxious about blushing,” which provides a long-term solution, rather than just the short-term of taking a pill.
Because, yes, there are pills. But Dr. Azarani warned that “when medication is used without therapy, it can help reduce blushing frequency in the short run, but may actually reinforce anxiety in the long run by preventing you from learning how to manage blushing-related anxiety on your own.”
But back to the pills. (Before taking any medication or herbal remedies, consult your psychiatrist.) For severe symptoms, beta-blockers like Propranolol could be prescribed. But if you’ve heard that taking an antihistamine like Claritin or Zyrtec helps control blushing, think again. While they block histamine, which can be involved in inflammatory reactions, they aren’t recommended for this.
But if you discover that blushing is a part of a social anxiety disorder, your doctor might prescribe Zoloft, or another daily selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor.
In extreme cases, there is even surgery. “Endoscopic thoracic sympathectomy (E.T.S.) is a surgical procedure in which a portion of the sympathetic nerves in the upper chest are destroyed to prevent signals from the brain from reaching nerves in the face that cause blushing,” Dr. Azarani said. But, in doing so, other nerves that regulate body temperature, heart rate, and sweating can be disrupted, which can lead to some side effects that frankly, sound worse than blushing (that includes something called “disturbing compensatory sweating.”)
So back to the more behavioral solutions: Someone once told me to picture the heat coming out of my hands instead of out of my cheeks. I find that to be a good calming mechanism.
Ms. McCausland, my new blushing friend, had another homegrown tip: If you’re blushing during an interview or when you’re doing a lot of talking in a meeting, she recommended explaining to the people in the room that you feel nervous or embarrassed. And if that doesn’t work? “Wet rags” for dabbing your face.
Who Else Blushes Besides Me?
Anyone (adult human, adolescent, or child) can and might blush when they feel shame or embarrassment or inadequacy. That said, social anxiety disorder (of which blushing is a frequent symptom) has a higher prevalence rate in women than men and due to inaccessibility, discrimination, stigma and lack of awareness, marginalized groups face diagnostic and treatment gaps when it comes to proper mental health care, according to the American Psychiatric Association.
There’s also the gender confidence gap — studies have proven that men have higher self-esteem than women — which can lead to impostor syndrome, which leads to shame, which leads to blushing. (I do know men who blush, but none wanted to speak about it on the record.)
But it’s not all bad news.
The Good News
The next time you start to blush during a work presentation, or when a group of hateful but well-meaning people sing happy birthday to you, don’t think of your blush as a double-crossing cheek-heater. Because guess what? People like people who blush!
Some studies show that blushers are perceived as more genuine and trustworthy. (Dr. Azarani put it this way: The blushing communicates a sense of humility, which “in turn evokes compassion and trust in the observer, motivating them to accept rather than reject the blusher.”)
Plus, all that adrenaline secretion pulsing through our veins silently shows others that we care. And if you’re dating or around someone you find attractive, a blush can be interpreted as a welcome signal of emotion. (And let’s not forget that, historically and today, some people actually want that rosy tint on their cheeks. They don’t call the makeup product “blush” for nothing.)
Sure, you may wish you could keep your feelings closer to your vest, but a blush could lead to a very happy relationship. When Erica Rose, 28, saw Leah Hammerschlag, 30, blush on their first maybe-a-date-but-maybe-it’s-just-two-friends-hanging-out, Ms. Rose finally knew that Ms. Hammerschlag was interested.
“Your blushing made this relationship happen!” Ms. Rose told Ms. Hammerschlag when we spoke. “The blush was a dead giveaway that I had an opening to pursue this. So I’m very thankful for it.”
“If I hadn’t blushed, who knows if we’d be where we are today,” Ms. Hammerschlag said. They have been dating for six months. Turns out, love stories can also be chock-full of blood.
