The Advice Doctor

Dear Advice Doctor,

On vacation over the Christmas holidays I set my purse down in a restaurant, and it was out of my sight for maybe two seconds, but when I looked for something I had in there later it was gone. I don’t know who did it or how, but in the blink of an eye they stole my identity, ruined my credit rating, and drained my bank account. I’m still recovering. Help!

— Cleaned Out

Dear Cleaned Out,

I’m sure this is a difficult situation for you, and I don’t mean to seem uncaring, but it’s a wonder this doesn’t happen more often, or that it has never happened to you before this.

Why do I make a statement like that?

Do you realize the average person blinks 15 times a minute? That adds up to more than 10,000 blinks a day, quite a lot of shuteye. “The blink of an eye” is an idiom meaning a very brief period of time, and in fact, the length of a typical blink is a mere 100 milliseconds long. Even so, University College London (UCL) neurologists estimated in a 2005 study that if all our blinks in an entire year were consecutive, they would add up to 9 full days spent blinking.

We blink for several reasons, including as a response to eye irritants and as flirting or other forms of body language, and the majority of blinks, performed to lubricate the eyes and rinse away any foreign matter.

How is that we don’t notice so much blinking?

Those same UCL neurologists conducted an elaborate study to measure the effects of blinking on the brain. Subjects blinked while lying in a darkened MRI brain scanner with a fiber optic light cable in their mouth to make their entire head glow. This was to ensure that light falling on the retina was constant even while blinking, enabling scientists to measure any effects on brain activity independent of light.

The surprising discovery of the study was that blinking instantaneously suppresses brain regions associated with sight. That’s why we are only rarely aware of our many blinks. When people say (as you did) that they missed something because it happened in the blink of an eye, well, the brain misses it too.

I hope this answers your question. Thanks for writing!

Do you have a question for The Advice Doctor about health, life, love, personal relationships, career, raising children, or any other important topic? Send it to News@AugustaRx.com. Replies will be provided only in the Examiner.

By popular demand we’re making at-cost subscriptions available for the convenience of our readers. If you live beyond the Aiken-Augusta area, or miss issues between doctor’s appointments — don’t you hate it when that happens? — we’ll command your mail carrier to bring every issue to your house!