Brain Freeze

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With the beginning of summer more and more people are consuming ice cream, frappes, milk shakes and very cold things to cool off. It is one of the best parts of warm weather going out for ice cream… In doing so a lot of us experience what is called brain freeze or ice cream headaches. They are very painful but have a short duration. What causes these horrible, painful headaches, well I decided to find out what they are caused from and why and this is what I found out.

A brain freeze or ice cream headache is caused from drinking or eating something very cold very fast. There is a nerve in the roof of your mouth that sends a message to your brain that there has been a temperature change very quickly. Once this happens it sends a message to your brain and the brain thinks it is freezing and needs to warm up fast.

It suddenly opens the blood flow and the vessels swell filled with blood and thus this is what causes the pain. The same thing will happen if you apply ice to your forehead or your cheeks.

When this happens the best thing to do to stop the pain is to warm this nerve. The fastest way is to put your tongue on the roof of your mouth or drink something warm and apply it to the roof of your mouth. You can also try cupping your hands around your nose and mouth and breathing into your hand but as soon as the nerve has warmed the blood flow slows down to normal and the pain goes away. Most of these headaches last from 30 seconds to two minutes.

Is a brain freeze dangerous? No, there has never been a case of fatality from having a brain freeze, even though you may wish you was dead from the pain these things cause.

So the next time you find yourself eating ice cream too quickly or drinking something icy to fast remember if you do get a brain freeze, just slow down a bit and this probably wont happen.