Imagine this: you, after a long and difficult day, decide to relax, handle some work and grab a drink — you go to a café and order a nice cold drink (mango frappe, best thing at my college) and sit at a good spot. Then you drink it hastily — obviously, it's a hot day — and bam, a sudden sharp and painful headache strikes your head. Brain freeze. We've all experienced it once, or one too many times in our life. But what actually happens? Well, that's why I'm here dear viewers 😊
What is it?
The nerdly name sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia, but known by everybody as a brain freeze, happens when you basically drink/eat something cold way faster than you should.
Also an interesting fun fact:
The term "brain freeze" is trademarked. Yes, this is not a joke unfortunately. In 1990 it was commonly used as a sports term for athletes who made errors on the field. Then in 1994, 7-Eleven trademarked the term "brain freeze" to communicate the painful joy of drinking a frozen Slurpee. [1][2]
So a term used everyday by people is actually owned BY A CONVENIENCE STORE — now if that's not crazy I don't know what is. But now let's get into the science behind it a little, shall we?
Step by step — what actually happens:
· Cold hits the roof of your mouth
· Your body senses sudden extreme cold and tries to react and warm up — blood vessels throughout the head expand to let extra blood into the area for warmth Euronews [1]
· That sudden expansion of blood vessels is sensed by nerve cells — but the brain interprets the rapid expansion as something painful Frontiers [2]
· This pain signal travels through the trigeminal nerve which spreads throughout your face and head — with one branch extending up into the forehead area — which is why it feels like your forehead is being squeezed even though the cold was in your mouth All About Psychology [3]
So to put it simply, a brain freeze is our brain MISTAKING this sudden change in temperature in the roof of our mouth as pain — so there is no actual pain, just our brain being dumb -_-.
To simplify my yapping, the term brain freeze actually has a funny name and is trademarked somehow by 7-Eleven. And we don't actually feel pain, it's just our brain "overreacting" to a random cold in the mouth. I think the brain needs to chill out and focus more on getting me past this stupid final.
