You know that feeling when you eat a spoonful of extra cold ice cream and suddenly a torturous pain spreads through your head? We've all experienced it. It's Ice Cream Week on The Kitchn, so what better time to get a little science lesson on brain freeze—or rather, sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia.
Studies conducted by Harvard medical researchers along with scientists at the University of Ireland and the Department of Veterans' Affairs found that brain freeze is the result of putting something cold against your upper palate, which causes a sudden surge of blood into the brain.
The scientists believe the increased blood flow could be part of a temperature-regulation mechanism. When it detects intense cold, the body pumps more blood to the brain to keep it functioning in a warm environment. But that activity may also be raising pressure inside the skull, producing the headaches we call brain freeze. Recovery happens when the artery returns to its normal size.
The cure? Eat cold things a little more slowly and move them around your mouth, or just brace yourself and wait it out.
Read More: The Science of Brain Freeze at The Atlantic
Related: Product Review: Cuisinart ICE-21 Ice Cream Maker
(Image: Faith Durand)
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Funny, I wolf down cold foods, and I rarely feel anything from them! Maybe I just keep it lower in my mouth, so it doesn't shock my upper palate.
I find this interesting- and maybe some other readers have this happen to them as well; I don't get brain freeze, I get back-freeze....odd, I know. When I eat something extremely cold (ice cream, ice, etc) instead of my head aching from it- I get a back ache! It only lasts as long as a typical brain freeze would, but my back instead. Maybe my nerve wiring is a little off.
I get the back freeze too! I also get brain freeze but it usually hurts in both areas. :)
Two of the major arteries that supply your brain are vertebral arteries - they travel quite a journey up your entire spine. So 'back freeze' could just indicate that for you, those are the vessels responding most strongly to the impulse to alter blood supply.
you can solve brain freeze by rubbing your tongue against the roof of your mouth to help warm the nerves signaling the excessive cold! I laughed when I first heard this, but it works and I've used it ever since when eating ice cream. And let's be honest: who eats that first ice cream cone of summer slowly?
I've never gotten a brain freeze and always thought people were bonkers for talking about them all the time. Then I realized I never get them because my teeth are so darn sensitive I never eat cold food fast for the pain it causes my teeth. Ergo... no brain freezes.
Ditto the tongue on the roof of your mouth - it warms your soft palate quickly.
A few sips of something warm, even warm water, cures brain freeze as well.
YES! my husband always looks at me like i'm so weird when i say i get 'back freeze'! and the tongue-on-the-roof-of-the-mouth trick only works sometimes. fascinating.
You will think I am weird but I have never experienced brain freeze myself (brain farts, on the other hand - PLENTY!!!). My BF always complains about brain freeze after having Crappucino (that's what I call his Starbucks' iced cappucino) or ice cream. But, perhaps it if because he wolfs down all his food very quickly and big chunks/gulps (ice cream included) while I enjoy it in tiny little morsel that I let melt in my mouth (and yes, I have sensitive teeth myself, too).
ah ha! Thank you for posting this. I have an ongoing debate with my husband over brain freeze. Obviously I'm right! Tongue on the roof of the mouth does the trick for me, but make sure your tongue isn't just as cold as your palate!