This Is What’s Happening In Your Body When You Get A Brain Freeze

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Summer is the season for brain freeze — Slurpee-slurping, ice cream-eating and milkshake-chugging brain freeze. We all recognize that seriously uncomfortable moment when a sudden headache takes hold, we close our eyes with a wince and wait for the tension to dissipate. But why exactly do we get a brain freeze in the first place, and what’s happening in our bodies when we do?

Brain freeze, or a cold-stimulus headache, is your body’s automatic way of telling you to slow down with the cold stuff. Scientifically known as sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia, brain freeze fades as quickly as it arrives, and it obviously begins where you start ingesting the cold food or drink in the first place.

Your mouth contains some of the highest blood vessel densities in your body, which is why your mom always stuck that annoying thermometer underneath your tongue when she thought you were running a fever as a child. Normally, your mouth is the first line of defense against food and drink temperatures that aren’t exactly ideal for the rest of your body. But when you down the cold stuff way too fast, your mouth doesn’t have enough time to do its job properly.

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So you keep gulping down your ice water, and as you do so, the roof of your mouth and back of your throat grow really, really cold. And that’s approximately where your internal carotid artery and your anterior cerebral artery (the two arteries that supply blood to your brain) meet in the middle of your neck. So your blood gets colder as it passes through this juncture, reaching your brain in a slighted chilled state, which your brain does not like.

Reacting to this acute change, your arteries in your brain then dilate and contract, which creates the pain signal that’s biology’s way of telling you to stop what you’re doing because your brain is pissed. Then, when you pause on the cold consumption, your brain freeze pretty much remedies itself immediately. And pro tip: If you press your tongue to the roof of your mouth or switch to a glass of room-temperature water, the chill in your mouth will equalize quicker and relieve the distress the arteries in your brain are feeling.

So there you have it. It’s all about maintaining a happy blood temperature as that life source fuels your brain. It makes total sense if you ask us. And it makes us want to be a little more conscious of our warp-speed eating and drinking habits when we’re especially thirsty or in need of a cold treat. Cue the motivational speech about mindful eating. 😉

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