Yikes! Brain Freeze!

Here in the Seattle area, we are going through a rather disappointing spring. With the exception of 1 very notable day, our weather has been much colder and wetter than usual. Now, I love warm weather. Give me sun, sun, sun! So I’ve been having a hard time being patient for the nice weather to return. When I think about warm weather, I think about lots of things associated with summer time – barbeques, running through the grass in my bare feet, seeing our cats sunning themselves in the windows, listening to the birds outside, and, of course, all the yummy summer food. Especially ice cream. I really like ice cream. The only downside to eating ice cream on a warm summer day, unfortunately, is the chance of developing brain freeze.

Have you ever had brain freeze - that feeling when you’re eating something really cold (could be ice cream, or a slurpee, or some ice cubes in a drink) and all of a sudden you get a horribly painful ache in the front of your skull? Fortunately, it only lasts a few seconds, which is a very good thing since it hurts so badly. Have you ever wondered what causes it?

Brain freeze occurs when your palate gets a little confused over the temperature. Your palate is, basically, the roof of your mouth. If you run your tongue over the roof of your mouth, everything from the ridge behind your teeth to the farthest back you can reach is the palate. It is made of both bone and muscle, and is covered by a layer of skin. It serves several important purposes, including separating your nose and nasal cavity from your mouth. There are many nerves and blood vessels situated in this region, which are all sensitive to the things you eat. When you eat something very cold very quickly, the nerves in your palate get a strong message that there’s something freezing here! These nerves then get a little confused – they think that your brain is in danger of freezing from the cold. And since a frozen brain would be very bad for your health, these nerves send an immediate message to increase the blood flow to your head. Increased blood flow would mean extra warmth for your brain, keeping it safe from freezing. However, the blood vessels holding this extra blood in your head expand so quickly that they cause pain. The pain is very short-lived – the increased blood flow stops as soon as your palate warms up a little, your blood vessels contract again, and the headache stops.

One thing that surprised me is that not everyone suffers from brain freeze. Apparently, it only happens in 30-40% of the population. (The American population, that is.) I guess that makes me one of the unlucky ones, since I definitely get them! I did learn one new way of getting the brain freeze to go away faster, though. When you feel it start to develop, press your tongue against the roof of your mouth. This will warm your palate up faster than it would otherwise, and stop the headache faster.

Or you could just eat your ice cream a little bit slower.