Why do we get brain freeze?

It’s 1998 and I’m in the US. It’s the first time I’m confronted with the concept of an ice-cold milkshake. Yummy! Two big gulps follow. «Oooow!» My face contorts as a sharp pain spreads across my head. My father explains to me that I got a brain freeze from drinking too fast.

Why is that?

The palate reacting to the cold

«Brain freeze is a subtype of what is called cold stimulus headache, which is another way of saying headache triggered by cold,» says Professor Christoph Schankin, Head Physician of the Neurological Clinic at Inselspital in Bern. My father seems to have been right about the cold. «In its classic form, it occurs when something cold, for example an ice cube or ice cream, touches the roof of the mouth. It’s what’s sometimes referred to as an ice cream headache,» he continues. Gulping down my banana milkshake back in the day lowered the temperature of my palate very suddenly.

The symptoms I experienced are pretty spot on, too. «There’s typically a headache that ascends on both sides in the forehead or temples. It’s usually piercing or pressing and spontaneously subsides within a maximum of 30 minutes after the stimulus is removed.» Thirty minutes? Fortunately, my brain freezes never lasted more than a few seconds.

What exactly causes this cold pain is not fully clear yet. According to Schankin, there are two possible triggers: on the one hand, it could be due to the rapid contraction or relaxation of the blood vessels that have come into contact with the cold. Blood vessels contain a lot of nerves that mediate pain with this sudden change in diameter. «On the other hand, it’s possible that the cold directly activates the pain sensors of the nerves, thereby causing pain.»

Teenagers more affected

Since the milkshake incident in 1998, my brain has suffered the odd freeze over the years. Think Coke with lots of ice, ice cream or a semifreddo right out of the fridge. But you know what I realised? I was a kid or a teenager when this happened. Since growing out of puberty, I don’t remember experiencing that type of pain again. Maybe because I’m eating a little smarter, and ice-cold desserts don’t hit my palate as often anymore. Plus, when I do, I tend not to gobble them up as fast as I did back then. Or as Schankin speculates: «It may be due to the fact that the autonomic nervous system, which is responsible for vascular regulation, is more sensitive in adolescents.» In any case, it’s a fact that young people are more likely to have brain freeze than older people. «It’s estimated that about 50 per cent of teens experience this phenomenon, while the numbers are much lower in adults.»

But it’s not just age; genetics also come into play. The risk of experiencing brain freeze is many times higher if one of your parents suffers from it, he explains. In my family, that’s definitely my father. On that trip to the US, I watched him wince as he took a large gulp of his chocolate milkshake.

Why does the second hand of the Swiss railway clock pause before a new minute? Why is popcorn served at the movies? And why don’t beverage glasses go in the same bin as other glass? Everyday life is filled with intriguing questions, the answers to which I’m determined to find. If you have a burning question of your own but no time to research it, shoot m e an e-mail. I like doing the dirty work.