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The one blush you cannot fake

Why Do You Go Red When You Are Embarrassed?

Embarrassment opens the blood vessels in your face, and unlike almost every other reaction, you cannot do it on purpose.

Vessels in the face areunusually wideThey sit very close tothe surfaceEmbarrassment makesthem open furtherNo conscious control atall
The one signal you cannot switch on or off.

  1. Step 1 of 5

    Skin colour is mostly about blood underneath.

    Vessels narrowed Less blood near thesurface — paleVessels widened More blood near thesurface — red

    The vessels just under your skin can widen or narrow. Wide means more red blood close to the surface, and that shows through.

  2. Step 2 of 5

    Your face is built differently.

    Skin on your arm Facial skin: morevessels, closer up

    Facial vessels are wider, more numerous and closer to the skin than almost anywhere else on you, and they respond to signals the rest of your body ignores.

  3. Step 3 of 5

    Embarrassment triggers the fight-or-flight system.

    Adrenaline elsewhere Vessels narrow — you gopaleAdrenaline in the face Vessels open — you gored

    Adrenaline is released, which normally narrows vessels. In your face the same chemical does the opposite, because the receptors there are different.

  4. Step 4 of 5

    You cannot do it on purpose.

    No conscious routeto these nerves Which is why youcannot fake it

    The nerves involved are the automatic ones, the same set that runs your gut and heart rate. There is no voluntary path to them at all.

  5. Step 5 of 5

    Trying not to blush makes it worse.

    You notice you are blushing That isembarrassingtoo So you blushharder

    Worrying about blushing is itself a social threat, which triggers more adrenaline. It is one of the few reactions that feeds on your attempt to stop it.

    Darwin called blushing the most peculiar and most human of all expressions. No other animal is known to do it.

The short version

Blushing is adrenaline opening the unusually wide vessels in your face — an honest signal precisely because you cannot control it.

Try it yourself

Try to make yourself blush deliberately, in a mirror. You cannot, and that is the whole point of the signal.

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