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Blushing and embarrassment go hand in hand. Feeling flushed is such a natural response to sudden self-consciousness that if it weren't part of an emotionally crippling experience, it could almost be overlooked. But blushing is unique, which is why scientists want to know more about blushing. While the psychology of blushing remains elusive, we do understand the physical process involved.

Blushing from embarrassment is governed by the same system that activates your fight-or-flight response: the sympathetic nervous system. This system is involuntary, meaning you don't actually have to think to carry out the processes. In contrast, moving your arm is a voluntary action; You have to think about it, no matter how fleeting the thought is. This is good, because if moving your arm was involuntary, people would end up buying a lot of stuff they don't want at auctions.

When you're embarrassed, your body releases adrenaline. Adrenaline speeds up your breathing and heart rate to prepare you to run from danger. It causes your pupils to grow bigger to allow you to take in as much visual information as possible. It slows down your digestive process so that the energy can be redirected to your muscles. All of these effects account for the jolt you feel when you find yourself embarrassed.

Adrenaline also causes your blood vessels to dilate (called vasodilation), in order to improve blood flow and oxygen delivery. This is the case with blushing. The veins in your face respond to a signal from the chemical transmitter adenylyl cyclase, which tells the veins to allow the adrenaline to do its magic. As a result, the veins in your face dilate, allowing more blood to flow through them than usual, creating the reddened appearance that tells others you're embarrassed. In other words, adrenaline causes more local blood flow in your cheeks.

Blushing from embarrassment is a unique phenomenon. There are other means by which our cheeks become flushed: Drinking alcohol or becoming sexually aroused can cause us to blush, but only being embarrassed causes the type of blushing that is triggered by adrenaline.  Blushing is part of a powerful experience, but why have we developed this response to being embarrassed? Science hasn't been able to answer that question definitively, but there are some interesting theories about the reasons for blushing.

If you examine the phenomenon of blushing objectively, it appears a bit strange. What possible purpose could there be for more blood to flow through your cheeks when you feel embarrassed? Blushing has been determined to be universal among, as well as exclusive to, humans. Why would we develop a specific process that physically displays our embarrassment? Where did blushing come from? These are the questions that researchers are trying to answer. Ray Crozier is a psychology professor at University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom. He's concluded that blushing evolved as a means of enforcing the social codes to which we humans must adhere for our societies to function in a friendly manner.  By blushing when we're embarrassed, we are showing others that we recognize we've just misstepped socially, and that we're paying the price for it. Others who see us blushing after an awkward situation understand from experience the unpleasant feelings we're undergoing at that moment, and blushing may serve as a nonverbal, physical apology for our mistake.

By studying the development of our social intelligence, psychologists have found that blushing from embarrassment develops alongside our consciousness of others. This lends further support to the notion that blushing has a purely social basis.

Regardless of what proves to be the ultimate explanation for why we blush, people seem to have developed an aptitude for forgiveness alongside their physical response to embarrassment -- if we hadn't, there'd be no reason for blushing. So the next time you suffer an awkward situation of your own making and feel your cheeks grow warm, just remember -- this, too, shall pass.

There are many parts of the body that are in action when you yawn. First, your mouth opens and jaw drops, allowing as much air to be taken in as possible. When you inhale, the air taken in is filling your lungs. Your abdominal muscles flex and your diaphragm is pushed down. The air you breath in expands the lungs to capacity and then some of the air is blown back out.

While the dictionary tells us that yawning is caused by being fatigued, drowsy or bored, scientists are discovering that there is more to yawning than what most people think. Not much is known about why we yawn or if it serves any useful function, and very little research has been done on the subject. However the main theory about why we yawn is the Physiological Theory. 

It says that Our bodies induce yawning to draw in more oxygen or remove a build-up of carbon dioxide. This theory helps explain why we yawn in groups. Larger groups produce more carbon dioxide, which means our bodies would act to draw in more oxygen and get rid of the excess carbon dioxide. However, if our bodies make us yawn to drawn in needed oxygen, wouldn't we yawn during exercise? Robert Provine, a psychologist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and a leading expert on yawning, has tested this theory. Giving people additional oxygen didn't decrease yawning and decreasing the amount of carbon dioxide in a subject's environment also didn't prevent yawning.

Sourced from: HowStuffs Work

Throughout Europe and North America, it is traditional for the bride to throw her bouquet at the reception and for all single women present to compete in catching it. The woman who catches the bouquet is said to be the next who will marry. But how did this custom originate?

In medieval Europe, a bride typically did not expect to wear her wedding dress again, and the dress was considered good luck for other women, a type of fertility charm. After the wedding, single women chased the bride and ripped pieces off her dress, leaving her in tatters. Over the years, wedding dresses became more expensive and it became traditional for women to keep them, either as a memento or to pass on to a daughter for her wedding day.

To prevent guests from ripping the wedding dress, brides began throwing other objects as a distraction, one of which was the garter. Later, the bouquet became the most traditionally thrown object. The wedding bouquet is particularly suited to this use, as flowers symbolize fertility, and as perishable items, they are not something the bride would wish to keep. The bouquet is also a safer item to toss than the garter, as unruly and impatient wedding guests were sometimes known to try to take the garter from the bride while she was still wearing it.

Some modern brides and grooms do not like the tradition of throwing the bouquet and either modify it or do away with it altogether. Tossing the bouquet can be uncomfortable for unmarried female guests who do not wish to marry or who feel put on the spot by the custom. Also, competition to catch the bouquet can become a violent stampede. Some brides stage the event so that their maid of honor or a friend who is engaged catches the bouquet. Others choose to give a small bouquet to each of their bridesmaids, or to give each woman at the reception a flower from the bridal bouquet.

If cats fall a short distance, they can almost always right themselves and land on their feet. If they fall more than one or two floors, however, they may sustain severe or even fatal injuries. The number of cats who become injured from falling is increasing, partially because of the large number of multi-story apartment buildings. Cats who are injured during falls are often said to have 'high rise syndrome.'