Why do we faint?

Moment of Um

American Public Media

Kids & Family, Education For Kids

4.4 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 12 March 2025

⏱️ 6 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

You might have seen someone faint in a movie. It usually happens after they see something shocking. They close their eyes and suddenly fall to the ground. In real life, people faint for many different reasons, not just shock. We asked pediatrician Dr. Wendy Hunter to tell us more about fainting.

Got a question that’s shockingly hard to answer? Send it to BrainsOn.org/contact, and we’ll find a swoon worthy explanation!

Transcript

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0:00.0	From the brains behind brains on, this is The Moment of Um.
0:08.3	Moment of Um comes to you from APM Studios. I'm Molly Bloom.
0:14.3	Um.
0:18.6	The ostriches escaped? Oh dear. No, that's not it. My favorite sweater shrunk? Oh my!
0:30.1	Not quite. Okay. Oh, hi. I'm practicing my dramatic faint. I'm in a new play Sandin wrote and in one scene I need to act
0:39.5	like I'm fainting. You know, that's when someone momentarily loses consciousness. They often
0:44.5	lay down as it's happening and it can take seconds or minutes for them to recover. It's a real
0:49.7	thing that happens to people. In the play, my evil twin shows up unannounced at my fondue party,
0:55.6	and I'm so shocked, I faint, knocking the cheese and chocolate over in the process. Don't worry,
1:01.2	it's not real cheese or chocolate. Theater magic. I want my performance to look as real as
1:07.3	possible, so I've been imagining shocking things and pretending to faint when I hear
1:12.6	about them, like this.
1:14.4	The creamer has spoiled?
1:16.2	Oh, no!
1:18.0	You know, it would help me if I knew more about fainting.
1:22.9	Some listeners have been wondering about this, too.
1:25.4	Why do people faint?
1:27.6	Maybe a doctor can fill us in.
1:41.3	So one reason that you might pass out is that you're not getting enough blood flow to your brain.
1:47.5	I'm Dr. Wendy Hunter. I am a primary care pediatrician in La Jolla, California, and host of the
1:52.9	Pediatrician Next Door podcast. Fainting is also called Passing Out, and it's your way of
1:59.4	kind of pressing a pause button. Imagine like blood is a delivery
	...

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