Why Do I Turn White When Scared?
Simply because, when you are scared or frightened, the blood almost leaves your face entirely. Under normal conditions, the red blood which is flowing through the arteries of your face, gives the face a reddish tinge, and your face becomes white when you are frightened, because then the blood leaves the face. It is quite singular, but when you are really frightened, whatever the cause may be, the human system receives such a shock that the heart just about stops beating all together. When your heart stops beating of course the flow of the blood from the heart stops and then there is no supply of fresh red blood coming through the arteries under the skin of your face. Therefore you look white—the color your face would be if no blood ever flowed through your arteries and veins. Some people have faces so white they look as though they were scared all the time. This is not because they have no blood flowing through the veins and arteries in their faces, but because their supply of blood is less than other peoples, and sometimes because the walls of their arteries and veins are much thicker than the average that the color of the blood does not show through. There are also many people who have so much blood in their systems all the time, and the walls of whose arteries are so thin, that they look at all times as though they might be blushing.