What happens to the body when experiencing brain freeze & bull; hello healthy

Enjoying cold ice cream that melts on the tongue in hot weather is one of the greatest pleasures in life. But, enjoy a large dollop of your favorite vanilla ice cream in a hurry will bring a new suffering - which you may be very familiar with - namely, brain freeze.

Brain freeze occurs when you eat ice cream or sip a large sip of cold drink in one too fast. The condition caused by cold food is officially recognized by International Headache Society , as reported by the Daily Mail.

What is that brain freeze ?

Based on the definition of rummy from the IHS, brain freeze is the sensation of a stabbing headache in the middle of the forehead as a result of "swallowing or inhaling a cold stimulus." This condition usually occurs when the weather is very hot and a person eats cold food too quickly. As a result, an official name brain freeze is Cold Stimulus Headache (CSH).

Brain freeze is your body's way of warning you to slow down your eating rate and not to rush it. However, researchers found that eating something cold slowly can also trigger the emergence of this "brain frozen".

Headaches resulting from brain freeze including types of headaches that occur very quickly, but also disappear quickly. The medical term for this type of headache is called sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia .

What happens to the body when experiencing brain freeze

Reporting from Science Daily, Dwayne Godwin, Ph.D., a neuroscientist at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, said that brain freeze is thought to be caused by cold stimulants, in solid or liquid form, passing through the roof of the mouth or the back wall of the pharynx.

Our mouths are filled with blood vessels, including the tongue - this is why we take our temperature by inserting a thermometer into our mouth. When something cold hits the roof of the mouth, a sudden change in temperature in the tissue stimulates the nerves to cause the blood vessels to dilate and swell rapidly. This is an attempt to direct the blood back to the area to warm it back up.

In fact, the brain cannot feel pain even though it has billions of neurons. The pain that arises from this cold stimulant is felt by neuron receptors outside the so-called protective layer of the brain meningen , where two arteries meet. The blood flowing through the internal carotoid arteries in the throat is cooled by the cold stimulant you are consuming, and then meets the anterior cerebral artery at the junction of the forehead where brain tissue begins. This flood of blood flow produces excruciating pain as the two vessels are busy opening and closing, creating increased pressure, which triggers the nerves of the brain.

This sudden dilation of blood vessels triggers pain receptors to activate, which in turn release prostaglandins (which cause pain), increase sensitivity to aggravate pain, and produce inflammation by sending signals through the trigeminal nerve to alert the brain that the mouth is having a problem.

In short, drinking cold drinks quickly does not give your mouth enough time to absorb cold completely.

How to effectively overcome brain freeze

The pain in the head will subside when the blood vessels return to their normal size. One of the fastest ways to reduce the pain of the consequences brain freeze is to quickly stick your tongue against the roof of the mouth to warm the mouth temperature.

Anything else that can help overcome brain freeze is to stop the cold feeling in the mouth by rinsing it with a warm drink.

The best way to prevent a brain freeze from reoccurring is to eat small portions of cold food / drink, and allow space between mouthfuls to give your throat a brief "break" to warm itself up again.