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For pretty much all of my life I’ve been able to “re-pressurize” my ears. For example, when I’m on an airplane or SUBA diving. I thought it was something similar to being able to wiggle your ears, except you can’t tell from the outside that I’m doing anything. I never thought much of it, but I got curious and started doing a little research a few weeks ago. (using the perennial favorite Wikipedia).
Well, I actually started with Google, since I had no grasp of the vocabulary needed to find out what’s going on when I “re-pressurize my ears”. In the end, it all comes down to a part of the ear called the Eustachian tube. Each ear has one, and they are responsible for equalizing ear pressure. They tend to do this naturally through muscle movements in the neck during yawning or swallowing.
The cool part is that some people can move these neck muscles voluntarily, allowing them to re-pressurize at will, like me.
My mom on the other hand has always had a hard time on airplanes because of the long time it takes her ears to re-pressurize in the air or even when she finally gets off the plane. A little further research shows that there are two popular ways to do a “manual override” of sorts for people to re-pressurize more quickly. One is called the Valsalva maneuver (the good old “pinch your nose and blow” move).
The other is much cooler, called the Frenzel maneuver. The Frenzel is totally hands free, safer to perform, and also has no outward signs of your re-pressurization. The history on it is pretty interesting too, the Wikipedia article on it is here. I can’t wait to show my mom!