Have you ever slurped up ice cream or an icy beverage in a hurry, only to be rewarded with an excruciating headache mere moments later? I’m not a Slurpee fan, but quite a few of my friends succumbed to the dreaded “brain freeze” back in the day after downing them too quickly. The condition is so synonymous with the drink that 7-Eleven actually trademarked the term.
Brain freeze, also known as ice cream headache, afflicts everybody at some point. But what is it about cold matter in our mouths that causes such severe, yet temporary, headaches? Is there any hope for a brain freeze-less existence?
Brain Pain Isn’t Just in Our Heads
It seems strange that what starts in the mouth should make the head hurt, but that’s due to a little nerve confusion. When we put something cold in our mouths, like a big spoonful of ice cream or a popsicle, it hits our palates (the technical term for the roof of the mouth). The palate hosts nerve clusters that act as temperature regulators for the brain, sending signals to the brain about changes in body heat.
As soon as the nerves pick up on the influx of cold, they overreact, anticipating a severe loss in body heat. They signal blood vessels in the brain to contract in order to keep body temperature regulated. Once the temperature in the mouth returns to stasis, palate nerves calm down and tell blood vessels to dilate again, causing a rush of blood to the head—that rush is responsible for the resulting headache. It’s hard to believe all of this could occur in a matter of seconds, since ice cream headaches happen almost immediately after putting something cold in the mouth, but that’s how quickly our bodies react.
The Facts We Know About the Freeze
In a paper published in the British Medical Journal in 1997, Dr. Joseph Hulihan, a former assistant professor at Temple University’s Health Sciences Center, says that about 30 percent of people have experienced ice cream headaches. In fact, he names ice cream as the number one offender of headache-triggering foods. However, what’s still unclear is whether some people are more susceptible to them than others. For example, migraine sufferers often have episodes triggered by cold temperatures, with the process being the same as that of brain freeze. But a link between migraines and increased likelihood of ice cream headaches hasn’t been proven.
