This post is kind of gross but I have to ask.

I try to look at the world through the lens of evolutionary theory. It’s what makes most sense to me. A runny nose kind of makes sense in that your body seems to be trying to eliminate toxins. But instinctively people don’t blow their nose when it starts to run. People didn’t have tissues to blow into before. And when you look at babies and kids, they don’t instinctively blow their nose when they’re sick. When I was a kid with a runny nose, I would keep sniffing everything back up until it ended up in my throat and, at that point, I would just swallow it. I know it’s gross but most kids do that without thinking about it. Even animals like cats and dogs don’t have a way to flush out their mucus. My cat was sick and that mucus never left its body. We had to invent things like neti pots to flush out our sinuses but this isn’t a natural process. Our ancestors couldn’t do things like that. If animals and babies don’t instinctively blow mucus out of their nose, could it be bad for us to do that? It sounds gross but during allergy season I find myself blowing my nose constantly throughout the day and it makes me wonder what effect that has on my body. Mucus isn’t made out of thin air. My body needs to use water and probably a bunch of other resources like electrolytes to make and excrete mucus. As a kid I wouldn’t ever spit out phlegm from my throat but I do this at least twice an hour as an adult. I got into the habit of doing this after smoking weed a few times. It sounds nasty but what if there is something in mucus that our bodies need and it’s using this route to try and get it back into our digestive system?

#asknostr