Drat my sympathetic nervous system!

The hot room pressed in on me as the noise level climbed. I hate the cafeteria at noon, but all my colleagues love the social aspect. With each increase in decibel, I feel a subsequent color change. By the time I need to respond in order to appear social, my face flames despite the fact that I feel no anxiety and am surrounded by friends. There is only one cure. I politely excuse my beet red self so that my friends can say something unnecessary like. I enter the nearest restroom and drip freezing cold water down my spinal column. The shock reduces the blush but not the embarrassment. Aargh! I hate being so white!

Today was especially bad. We were in that hot, loud cafeteria and laughing boisterously. I was set up for the fall. Worse, the guy I am trying not to flirt with sat down beside me. When I started to tell an appropriately amusing story from my youth, my own energetic storytelling surrounded by the commotion of 1500 employees vying for lunch overcame my nervous system. A bright red blush spilled across my cheeks. So much for appearing cool. My friends' eyes turned empathetic; one kind soul even touched my arm. I wanted to scream at them: "Get me ice ladies! More ice! I'm not embarrassed just overstimulated!" but that felt inappropriate.

Facial blush is caused by overstimulation of the sympathetic nervous system. The mechanism is involuntary and anxiety may aggravate it, but the facial blush may also occur with or without stress or anxiety. Individuals with this condition were born to blush excessively. A person with this condition may even be alone at home, reading a book or watching a movie, and the facial blush may come on unexpectantly with no apparent stimulus. The person with facial blush often stands out in a crowd. A constantly blushing and glowing red face attracts attention. It is often misinterpreted by others who frequently misinterpret the blushing to mean that the afflicted is sick or embarrassed. Blushing causes severe embarrassment and frustration to anyone who has this syndrome and it can often lead to social phobia or other anxiety disorders. From: http://www.sympathectomy.co.uk/

Tell me about it, my fellow white blushers in England. For years, I simply avoided social situations altogether. The blushing happens in private or public whenever the room gets hot and noisy, but I don't really care if I blush at the TV set. In all the years of our love affair, TV has never laughed at or rejected me. However, human beings are neither so self-oriented nor so kind as my 21" Panasonic.

Unfortunately, people insist on interaction and understanding. Guys tend to interpret my blush as their being excessively attractive to me. That's fine. Gets me free stuff. Women are the worst. They pride themselves on being sympathetic. Well, an increase in "sympathy" is what gets me in the mess. If they truly want to help, they should grab the nearest glass of water and dump it down my shirt - which would at least make my blush more socially appropriate. Who wouldn't be embarrassed by being doused in the employee cafeteria?!

The impact of verbal feedback about blushing on social discomfort and facial blood flow during embarrassing tasks.Drummond PD, Camacho L, Formentin N, Heffernan TD, Williams F, Zekas

To investigate whether verbal feedback about blushing influences subsequent social discomfort or blushing itself, changes in facial blood flow and ratings of blushing and embarrassment were investigated in high (N=28) and low scorers (N=28) on the Blushing Propensity scale while singing and reading aloud, and while listening to audiotapes of their performance. After each task half of the participants were told that they had blushed, and the rest were told that they had not blushed. Blood flow increased progressively in participants with high blushing propensity scores who were given "blushing" feedback, but not in the other participants. This finding suggests that expecting to blush may become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Verbal feedback about blushing strongly influenced subsequent social discomfort, and mimicked the effects of blushing propensity on ratings of embarrassment and blushing intensity. In sum, the findings support the view that preconceptions about blushing propensity are shaped by past learning experiences, that concern about blushing is a major source of discomfort in embarrassing situations, and that these concerns are often unrelated to the actual intensity of blushing

So, next time you see someone blush, don't mention it. The poor sufferer already knows he or she has turned the color of a perfectly ripened tomato. Just give them free stuff and move the conversation along. If, however, it's an effusive red-head with a tendency to find double entendre in even the most benign of circumstances (my favorite professional phrase is "get on board" because anything surrounding it can be made to sound dirty), then please run to the ice machine. She will love you forever.