blush

The flush (medically Flush refers) due to a sudden expansion of blood vessels and an associated increase in blood volume of the skin of the face and the neck region of the People.

Classification according to ICD-10
R23.2	Flush
ICD-10 online (WHO version 2019)

Neural control

The so-called actively dilating beta-fibers of the sympathetic nervous system , which control the diameter of the capillaries (the thin blood vessels), are considered to be the nerve end links that control flushing . The sympathetic nervous system, together with the parasympathetic nervous system , the autonomic nervous system (which also autonomic nervous system is called). Its activity can usually not be influenced willfully: therefore, blushing can hardly be suppressed by an act of will.

An observer can see reddening of the skin (especially the cheeks ) in fair-skinned people when the red color of the blood shines through the vessel walls and the uppermost layers of the facial skin.

Blushing people themselves perceive their blushing as a temperature increase, which is usually less than 1 degree Celsius, reaches its maximum after about 15 seconds and returns to its starting value after a little more than half a minute. Blushing can be measured either by observation or with devices (color camera, infrared thermography , temperature sensor , laser Doppler flux, plethysmograph ).

To understand what triggers the blush, it is helpful to distinguish between blush and flush , as in English . Blush describes blushing as a possible physical accompaniment to one of the self-evaluating emotions (embarrassment, shame , situation-related shyness, embarrassment). Flush, on the other hand, is used in English in connection with anger / anger / rage ("angry flush"), as a result of artificial triggers (e.g. ingestion of substances such as chilli or pepper , inhalation of amyl nitrite or nitric acid amyloxide ) or physiological and metabolic processes (for example during menopause ).

Blushing disorders

Lighter blushing and erythrophobia are the most common blushing disorders. Erythrophobia differs from slight blushing in that it focuses on the fear of blushing. Psychological / behavioral therapies or medication can be used as therapies for blushing and erythrophobia. Chronic mild reddening is now also treated surgically ( sympathectomy ).

Australian researchers reported in a journal in the summer of 2007 that excessive blushing of erythrophobic people was not a result of increased blood supply; rather, they demonstrated reduced blood outflow.

A flush can also be an indication of or the result of a disease (flush syndrome ). Its occurrence is typical, for example, with carcinoid (triggered by paraneoplastically formed endocrine disrupting substances), but also in the context of alcohol withdrawal or alcohol intolerance .

literature

Ernst Krause: The lovely shame . In: The Gazebo . Issue 13, 1876, pp. 217-219 ( full text [ Wikisource ]).
Jakob Henle : About the blushing. In: North and South. Monthly for international cooperation. Volume 19, Berlin 1882, pp. 47-59.
Charles Mariauzouls: Psychophysiology of Shame and Blushing. Inaugural dissertation. Ludwig Maximilians University, Munich 1996, DNB 951494473 .

Web links

Wiktionary: Blushing - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Shame and shaming. The use of an adaptive social emotion in historical penal law and practice . (PDF; 412 kB) shamestudies.de
Erythrophobia - the fear of blushing - background and exchange for blushing people

Individual evidence

↑ Peter Drummond et al. a .: Blushing during social interactions in people with a fear of blushing. In: Behavior Research and Therapy. Volume 45, 2007, pp. 1601-1608. doi: 10.1016 / j.brat.2006.06.012
Embarrassing drainage problems . Not increased blood flow, but slowed reflux makes people blush. ( Memento from February 13, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) at: www.wissenschaft.de

↑ M. Linden: Rehabilitation psychopharmacotherapy: drug treatment of chronic and chronic psychological syndromes. Deutscher Ärzteverlag, 2005, ISBN 3-7691-0473-0 , (online)

^ A. Zeeck, S. Grond, I. Papastavrou, SC Zeeck: Chemistry for medical professionals . Munich 2010.

[1] Peter Drummond et al. a .: Blushing during social interactions in people with a fear of blushing. In: Behavior Research and Therapy. Volume 45, 2007, pp. 1601-1608. doi: 10.1016 / j.brat.2006.06.012
Embarrassing drainage problems . Not increased blood flow, but slowed reflux makes people blush. ( Memento from February 13, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) at: www.wissenschaft.de

[2] M. Linden: Rehabilitation psychopharmacotherapy: drug treatment of chronic and chronic psychological syndromes. Deutscher Ärzteverlag, 2005, ISBN 3-7691-0473-0 , (online)

[3] A. Zeeck, S. Grond, I. Papastavrou, SC Zeeck: Chemistry for medical professionals . Munich 2010.