There is zero shame into digging right into a pint of ice cream—as long as you’re prepared for the inevitable: brain freeze.
It’s uncomfortable AF, but you probably don’t spend a ton of time wondering what’s causing your brain freeze when you’re too busy scrunching your face and holding your head. But uh, maybe you should know what exactly’s going on in there—and how to (even slightly) feel better.
Okay, so what exactly is brain freeze—and what causes it?
There’s actually a scientific name for that feeling of cold, tiny knives stabbing you in your brain: sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia. But let’s stick to brain freeze, yes?
At its core, brain freeze is actually a type of headache, says Clifford Segil, M.D., a neurologist at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, Calif.
When you eat or drink something really cold, really quickly, there’s a super-fast temperature change in the top of your mouth (a.k.a. your palate) and the back of your throat, causing those blood vessels to constrict or close.
Those constricted blood vessels also affects the anterior cerebral artery—an important blood vessel that supplies oxygenated blood to the frontal lobes of your brain, says Segil.
Basically, your brain doesn’t like this, making the pain receptors in your meninges (the outer covering of your brain) to quickly dilate and contract. This triggers your trigeminal nerve, which essentially sends sensations from your face and oral cavity to the brain, according to the National Institutes of Health. Your brain then processes those sensations as pain, says Segil.
So yeah, it’s a whole process for a tiny lick of ice cream.
Well, can you prevent brain freeze (or at least make it go away faster)?
I mean, yeah, but it’s a pretty obvious plan of attack: Just don’t eat cold stuff so quickly.
As for making brain freeze go away faster…you can, but brain freeze comes and goes pretty quickly already (like, within a few seconds).
If you’re dealing with a particularly nasty one, though, try putting your tongue on the roof of your mouth or drinking something that’s room temperature to stabilize the temperature in your mouth, ASAP, says Segil. Breathing through your nose may help warm things up in your mouth and speed up your brain freeze too, he adds.
Luckily, though, brain freeze isn’t dangerous—just a total buzz kill when you’re enjoying some ice cream. Be careful out there, guys.
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