Blinking.
Something you probably don’t think about very often…until something flies in your
eye and you involuntarily blink like crazy trying to get it out.
It seems we spend over 10% of our waking life blinking…which…is a lot.
But what if we stopped.
Hello and welcome back to Life’s Biggest Questions…
I am your host Rebecca Felgate – a serial blinker – and today I am asking What if
We Stopped Blinking?
Before we get into this video I want to start our eye chat by asking you what colour your
eyes are?
Mine are pretty difficult to describe, but I am gonna go with muddy green when there
is no light shining in them…and yellowy green when there is!
Lets get some eye colour chat in the comments section – also do leave a thumbs up on this
video and stick around to the end to hear some responses to comments.
One thing is for sure, if we all stopped blinking indefinitely then we would share the same
eye colour.
Red.
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OKAY.
Blinking.
SO it seems that we humans blink between 10-20 times a minute.
A blink lasts just a fraction of a second, but, like I said in the intro, we still spend
over 10% of our waking lives doing it.
The reason we blink is two fold; one, it keeps our eyes healthy and two it keeps our mind
healthy.
Lets start with the eyes.
Blinking is an involuntary reflex from the cerebellum part of the brain.
This is also the part of our brain which controls our heartbeat, so a super subliminal part
of us.
Each time we blink we spread oil and mucous across the surface of our eyes that keeps
them nice and lubricated, helps protect eyes from really bright lights and also helps sweep
the eye clean of foreign bodies like dust and smoke, or god forbid a little fly… can
I just interrupt the flow of my own video for a second and let you know that I think
there are few things worse than scooping a dead fly out of your eyeball… oh my god
and on those occasions it goes behind your eyeball and you think that there will be a
dead fly in your body forever, but luckily you keep blinking and eventually it comes
out.
YUCK.
Ergh!
SO… if we stopped blinking… it would mess with our eyeballs in a very unpleasant way.
Firstly, we would produce reflex tears, which happens when our eyes get super dry – ever
stepped outside on a cold winter day and wonder why your eyes run?
Cold dry air my friend.
But….after the initial runny eye fest, our eyes would start to get very red and very
itchy.
It would become pretty unbearable after around half an hour.
I want to interject with an anecdote here – in 2011, a one Fergal Flemming made headlines
shwn he beat Steven Stagg in a staring contest in Darwin Australia.
Fergal EYESORE Flemming kept his eyes open for an eye watering 40 minutes and 59 seconds
and said that it felt like he was getting an eyeball tattoo at 35 minutes in.
Precious.
Long term, it would be agony….
Like a backwards Bird Box from your nightmares.
Your eyes wouldn’t be able to blink to clear debris, which would build up over the hours.
GOD what happens if a fly gets in there?
Yuck.
IF you cant blink, how would you get it out?
Well if we all stopped blinking the biggest industry in the world would be eye drops,
right?
We could help ourselves and stave off infections by cleaning our eyes with drops… but we
would need to keep bending over to get the drops to fall out… if we cant blink, we’re
gonna have to hope gravity rises the water away for us.
The constant need for eyedrops would play havoc with…you know…doing anything.
Ever.
Without blinking and with a constant need to use eye drops to see, we couldn’t do
things like drive a car, ride a bike or walk at length… it would be hazardous.
If this was a universal rule of no blinking, this would also rule out travel – how can
you trust a pilot, train driver or ship captain if they cant really see properly?
A lot of us would end up getting nasty eye infections, and likely over time if we didn’t
blink from now until the day we day, we would likely lose our vision be it from light exposure
or infection…which would definitely suck…although maybe it would be a relief after all the issues
we inherit from not being able to blink but still desperately trying to see.
Some of us may even lose our eyes all together – have you ever sneezed with your eyes open?
No, you haven’t.
As a reflex your eyes close when you sneeze in order to…literally hold them in.
Whether they would actually pop out with a big sneeze…well its unlikely… but that
is what your body is trying to prevent.
SO….
The second reason we blink….
It seems that blinking is scientifically linked to our ability to focus and concentrate.
In 2012 an experiment was conducted by the University of Osaka in Japan in which people
were observed watching clips from classic British TV comedy, Mr Bean.
It seems that viewers synchronised their blinks at times that required less attention.
The researchers drew a link between cognitive function and Interestingly research has also
found that autistic people do not control their blinks in the same way, which draws
a link between blinking and social disability.
There needs to be more research but it could be that blinking is an integral part of our
brain function.
Building on that too – without blinking we would struggle to sleep – which we know
harms our ability to perform tasks the next day and beyond.
The good news is, we are unlikely to stop blinking any time soon.
The world record for not blinking is unofficially held by Michael Thomas who kept his eyes open
for an hour and 5 seconds.
Blinking seems as natural to us as breathing… so we’ll keep on doing it!
Although an ability not to blink may come in handy if we ever ran into Dr Whos weeping
angels or SCP 173….
But I’ll let Jack tell you about that in his very own episode of Life’s Biggest Questions.
So guys, what did you think to this video?
Do you have a new found love of blinking?
Let me know!
Also a big thanks to our video sponsor skill share – use our link to get a 2 month trial
and join 7 million others who are learning with skillshare!
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