BLUSHING

Blushing, or flushing, is when your face, ears, neck, and occasionally your upper chest, becomes red in colour. This is sometimes accompanied by a hot feeling in the area. Your skin contains a network of small blood vessels which have tiny muscles inside the walls. Normal blushing happens when a strong emotional trigger stimulates the nervous system to widen the blood vessels in the face. This increases the flow of blood into the blood vessels just underneath the skin, causing your face to turn red.

Blushing affects both men and women, but is more common in teenagers due to anxiety, feeling nervous, or hormonal activity. Women having hot flushes during the menopause may find that these make their face go red.

The small muscles in the blood vessels are controlled by the autonomic nervous system, which is the network of nerves in the body that produce automatic reactions. You have no control over this. Some people blush more easily than others. For example, after eating spicy food, one person’s face may become only a little flushed while someone else’s may become very red. It’s the same with exercise. Some people go very red, while others don’t.

Drinking alcohol can cause the face to go red for some people. This flushing of the face may be a sign of alcohol intolerance or a reaction to an ingredient in the drink.