Speaker 1: Welcome to brain stuff from how stuff works. Hey, brain stuff,
Speaker 1: it's Christian Seger. We get headaches for a lot of reasons.
Speaker 1: Sometimes foods like chocolate, cheese, or cured meat can cause them.
Speaker 1: Other times it's stress or maybe changes in our sleep habits.
Speaker 1: Headaches are also caused by eye strain, sinus problems, coughing,
Speaker 1: and even sex. And if you're really unlucky, they're a
Speaker 1: sign of neurological problems. But do you know what causes
Speaker 1: headaches and over one third of the population ice cream?
Speaker 1: Diabolical evil ice cream otherwise known as a brain freeze
Speaker 1: or a quote cold stimulus headache in more lofty circles.
Speaker 1: The ice cream headache only requires two things. First, something
Speaker 1: cold touching the roof of your mouth, and second, a
Speaker 1: hot environment like a summer day or a sauna or
Speaker 1: a yoga class full of sweaty people. That's where we
Speaker 1: all usually eat ice cream. Right. Brain freeze is caused
Speaker 1: by both a constriction and dilation of the blood vessels
Speaker 1: in your head. There's a nerve center just above your mouth,
Speaker 1: and when it gets cold, it signals the anterior cerebral
Speaker 1: artery to widen, trying to heat your brain with warm blood.
Speaker 1: Since the skull is a closed structure, the sudden rush
Speaker 1: of blood could be increasing pressure, which causes the pain
Speaker 1: we feel. It's kind of a horrible stabbing achey feeling,
Speaker 1: but the warm air around you causes these blood vessels
Speaker 1: to restrict again, relieving the pain about ten to twenty
Speaker 1: seconds after its onset. This experience is reportedly similar to
Speaker 1: a migraine headache, albeit a very short one. It's possible
Speaker 1: the influx of blood is supposed to protect your brain
Speaker 1: from extreme cold. The pain is usually in the mid
Speaker 1: frontal area, but it can be unilateral in other parts
Speaker 1: of the brain. But don't worry. Experts say that ice
Speaker 1: cream isn't going to give you brain damage or anything.
Speaker 1: In fact, when they're correcting aneurysms, doctors sometimes lower your
Speaker 1: brain temperature down to sixty four degrees fahrenheit or seventeen
Speaker 1: point eight degrees celsius. So ice cream ain't no thing,
Speaker 1: except there's only one cure for brain freeze. Never eat
Speaker 1: ice cream again. No, I'm just kidding. In one article
Speaker 1: about these headaches, a researcher actually said ice cream abstinence
Speaker 1: is not indicated, so keep eating all the ice cream
Speaker 1: you want, but slow it down a bit there, Hoss.
Speaker 1: Try to eat in small bites and avoid the roof
Speaker 1: of your mouth. Also, you may be more likely to
Speaker 1: get brain freeze if you already get migraines. The science
Speaker 1: isn't confirmed on that, but since the vascular response of
Speaker 1: ice cream headaches is similar to the experience of migraine sufferers,
Speaker 1: they may be are vulnerable. Researchers are investigating this connection
Speaker 1: now in hopes of developing even better painkillers. Check out
Speaker 1: the brainstuff channel on YouTube, and for more on this
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com.