Welcome to brain Stuff from house Stuff Works dot com, where smart happens him Marshall Brain was today's question, Why do your ears pop when you dive in the deep end of the pool. If you've ever struck your finger into your ear, you know about the ear canal. Your ear canal is a tube, and at the end of the tube is the ear drum, a thin piece of skin stretched tight like a drum over the end of the ear canal. You've probably read on a box of cotton swabs or heard from your mother that you should
never stick anything in your ear. What you want to avoid is sticking something in that could puncture the ear drum. On the other side of the ear drum is a hollow space filled with air called the middle ear. What you want is for the air in your ear canal and the air in the middle ear to have the same pressure. If they do, then the ear drum has equal pressure on both sides and it is smooth and happy.
In order for the middle ear to equalize its pressure, there's a thin tube called the us Nation tube that connects the middle ears air chamber to the throat. Air can flow back and forth through this tube, and it keeps the air pressure in the middle ear equal with the outside air pressure. When you swim in deep water, there can be a lot of water pressure. If you're you station tube is clogged or narrowed for any reason, then your middle ear gets shut off and it becomes
a closed chamber. It holds air at normal pressure, like fourteen point seven p s i. When you swim to the bottom of the deep end, the water is pressing into the ear canal at about nineteen p s i, so the ear drum bows inward because of the pressure difference. Since the ear drum is full of nerves, you feel this bowing as pain. To solve the problem, you can equalize the pressure. When you start to feel pain in your ears, hold your nose shut with your fingers and
blow into your nose. You'll hear your ears pop and the pain should go away. By blowing, you increase the air pressure and your lungs and throat and it blows the air up your station tube into the middle ear to equalize the pressure. When you rise back up to the surface, the middle ear will contain excess pressure, but the US station to generally releases it automatically. If not, try yawning to open it up, or chewing gum or something that will cause the U station tube deflex and open.
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