What Are The CAUSES of Blushing?
By taking the time to learn and understand the causes of blushing, one can begin working toward reducing or even curing it completely.
The Wikipedia article on blushing is a good place to start and talks about not only the reasons that people blush, but also breaks down the physiology of the blush. Very interesting, but it is incomplete and does not site any specific cause.
Mental Causes of Blushing
In the vast majority of cases, facial blushing is triggered by a situation that is perceived to be uncomfortable. Some examples could include things like
- -Having to give a presentation to a group of people
- -Meeting new people for the first time
- -Going on a job inerview
- -Going on a first date
- -Answering a question in a class room
- -Being put on the spot in another form
There’s a few things you should notice here with regard to the mental causes of blushing.
First, is that other people are usually involved.
It’s not as if you are sitting in your room by yourself and experiencing uncontrollable blushing. Of course not. There is almost always a social aspect to it. So in your attempt to uncover the causes of blushing, assuming that you want to stop blushing or reduce it, it would be valuable for you to do something that makes you feel more comfortable around people.
Work on your self-esteem. Overcome social anxiety. I have written a few articles on anxiety and sweating which blushers have found to be helpful. Though I wrote them in relation to sweating, the principles for anxiety management are still helpful.
The second thing you should notice about the mental causes of blushing is the use of the word “perceived.” As in, “blushing is triggered by situations that are perceived to be uncomfortable.”
Know that there is no situation that is fundamentally uncomfortable, but it is our own minds which make it so. Something that may be highly uncomfortable for me, that causes my face to blush and turn red, may not have any effect whatsoever on you.
I’ll give you an example…
I once knew a woman who was in her early 30s and her family constantly told her that she needed to get married soon or else nobody would want to marry her. This caused the poor lady to be very conscious of her status as single and worried about it. She had a good friend who was in the exact same situation, who didn’t particularly care that she was single.
As we would hang out, every so often the topic of marriage would come up. At the mere mentioning of the word “marriage” my friend would start flushing and blushing uncontrollably. Her entire face would turn totally red and also her neck and even some spots on her arms. Her friend was a blusher as well, she would blush every so often, but “marriage” was not a trigger for her.
So to help this lady out, we used simple hypnosis. We had her listen to a series of suggestions that changed the way she perceived her situation. This worked surprisingly quickly and although the lady still blushes every so often, her tolerance for talking about marriage has increased significantly. Hypnosis is a good way to change your perception of every day life and I highly recommendusing hypnosis to manage anxiety.
Non-Mental Causes of Blushing
There are causes of blushing and flushing that are not related to social situations or triggered by mental processes. There are certain skin conditions, like Rosacea, that manifest themselves as a permanent sort of redness to the face.
Here’s a helpful article on Rosacea by Wikipedia.
This is different from mental blushing and there are a variety of treatments for it which you can read about via that link above.
There is a common thread amongst both the mental and non-mental causes of blushing, along with the causes of sweating…
The core element that is involved is a general over-activity of the sympathetic nervous system, or SNS. The SNS is the involuntary part of your nervous system, which means that we do not have a conscious control over it.
It is, however, possible to relax this part of your system, which is one of the main things my brother and I did to overcome our sweating, blushing, and social phobia disorders.
Read more about our method, which we call “Mechanic Method” (Mechanic’s our last name), on this site…
Here’s a quick summary of Mechanic Method
The all-important concept of “Stacking”
Your doctor may be able to help
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