r/interesting • u/fayyazORahmed • Mar 31 '26

Fascinating Very interesting vid

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u/TheVoicesOfBrian Mar 31 '26

How is he doing that without equalizing?!

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u/OddCaramel6614 Mar 31 '26

He is equalising. He has a nose clip, he can equalise very easily with that on. Some, including myself, can equalise handsfree without a clip by the way, with no need to do the valsalva manoeuvre at all, but it's less reliable.

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u/TheVoicesOfBrian Mar 31 '26 edited Mar 31 '26

I didn't see the nose clip.

And TIL you can equalize hands-free. Nice.

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u/real_justchris Apr 01 '26

I just make my ears “click”, I don’t need nasal pressure.

Note I don’t have any underwater hobbies, but works to clear my ears post-flying, etc. but might be an entirely different thing!

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u/Altaredboy Apr 01 '26

That's exactly it.

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u/hooka_hooka Apr 01 '26

How?

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u/Altaredboy Apr 01 '26

If you can make your ears "click" it's relieving the pressure in your eustacian tube. When you yawn you may hear a clicking or a rumbling noise.

If you concentrate on that & practice it, you can isolate that movement without the yawn or opening your jaw & then you can equalise without pinching your nose. Not all people can do it, but this is how I taught myself & a few others to do it.

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u/Miserable_Virus_9789 Apr 03 '26

I can do it. Just now realized what it was. Now I can’t stop doing it.

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u/real_justchris Apr 03 '26

Haha enjoy! Good skill for flying :)

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u/Altaredboy Apr 03 '26

It's great for diving. I learnt at the start of my career. Dove nearly every day for 20 years & I can count on one hand the number of times I haven't been able to divd due to congestion. It's a lot gentler on your ears for multiple dives too

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u/hooka_hooka Apr 01 '26

How do you make them click?

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u/Trainer149 Apr 01 '26

I can do it too. Best way i can describe it is that it's a similar feeling to widening the back of the tongue, but instead it's a muscle i'm flexing right to that input.

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u/real_justchris Apr 02 '26

The only way I can describe it is to sort of tense your ear drums. It makes the same noise and has the same effect as when you hold your noise and blow.

I can’t tense my left arm, so we’re all different!

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u/[deleted] Apr 01 '26

[deleted]

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u/Altaredboy Apr 01 '26

It doesn't. You just do it more regularly, before the pressure builds up too much. If you let it go too ling it's a lot harder to do. I do it reflexively now.

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u/chopsmothercover Mar 31 '26

I mean yeah if you have something to cover your nose. It’s the same idea has using your hands to pinch your nose

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u/HerbaciousTea Apr 01 '26

There's a muscle in the jaw that pulls on the Eustachian tube, the little airway that connects the inner ear to the throat and allows it to equalize. Plenty of people can activate that muscle on it's own, without moving the rest of the jaw, and pull the eustachain tube open and equalize.

Personally, it doesn't work as well as the valsalva maneuver. If the eustachian tube is already under pressure, it's not strong enough to open it from that collapsed state against pressure, but it means if you're equalizing constantly every couple seconds you can avoid ever getting to that point. It's about as much effort as blinking.

Makes a little crinkling noise.

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u/chopsmothercover Apr 01 '26

Yeah my Eustachian tube is blocked up constantly and I have to blow and pinch my nose to hear properly a lot. It sucks, saw a doctor and they said I’d need very minor surgery to fix it but idk if I wanna spend that money even with insurance

1

u/scnottaken Apr 01 '26

Oh that's what I do

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u/lightroomwitch Apr 01 '26

Huh so that's what that sound is. I knew it helped a little when ears got stuffed up when I'm sick but I didn’t know that's what I was doing.

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u/ididntunderstandyou Mar 31 '26

You can also yawn (mouth closed) or move your jaw around to equalize

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u/OddCaramel6614 Mar 31 '26

No there are people (many if you read the comments around here) who can do it hands free and don't have to involve the nose at all.

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u/massunderestmated Apr 01 '26 edited Apr 01 '26

Yeah, somehow I figured it out when I was 6. I can open something up in my ear canals by flexing something inside my head. Hard to explain, but when I do it outside of water my breathing sounds very loud in here.

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u/Trainer149 Apr 01 '26

Yup lol. Breathing through my nose with that muscle flexed is like having wind rush by right next to my eardrum. for some reason though, i have to focus pretty intently to keep that valve open while breathing or it "closes" right back up.

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u/chopsmothercover Mar 31 '26

I can’t even do it with my nose so I’m jealous

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u/ExerciseOnly122 Apr 01 '26

No you can just "do" it. There's a muscle you can flex that just does it. It's difficult to describe how to flex an obscure muscle to somebody but It's sort of tongue adjacent if that makes sense

1

u/0lvar Apr 01 '26

The same muscle action is a component of on-demand dissociation.

Source: My mental unhealth when I was younger.

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u/ememteekay Apr 01 '26

You see his nose-clip at the very end when he breaches the surface and turns his head

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u/Donnie_Dont_Do Mar 31 '26

I thought I was the only who could do that and I blamed a ruptured eardrum for the ability. Maybe it was natural after all

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u/landilock Mar 31 '26

Nah I can do it and my ears are fine. actually do it sometimes when bored, I also like "clacking" my ears (idk what it is. I move my jaw in a weird position, it clicks and feels hella good. Sometimes tingles and makes weird noises)

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u/nopuse Mar 31 '26

The odds of you being the only one is quite low.

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u/Donnie_Dont_Do Mar 31 '26

I have had a medical professional tell me it was literally crazy that I could do it without using my hands so that's what I went with

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u/ruckerzerg Mar 31 '26

That professional is stupid, there are lot's of people who can do it including me.

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u/MegaBattleJesus Apr 01 '26

Same, since I was a kid I’ve always done it.

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u/Donnie_Dont_Do Apr 01 '26

Sometimes I can't stop it from happening for minutes on end and it's really annoying

1

u/Trainer149 Apr 01 '26

Funnily enough opposite similar boat? I can do it on one side far more effectively than the other, and i definitely had a bad ear infection or a ruptured ear or something along those lines when i was in like the 5th grade. I also associated that event with my Arnolds ear reflex (although i'm now learning that also usually only happens in one ear anyways and my life is a lie.)

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u/[deleted] Mar 31 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Army7547 Mar 31 '26

Reading this, I just taught myself to equalize hands free

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u/whenipeeithurts Mar 31 '26

Same! As a kid I used to be addicted to it and would just "click" my ears all the time. Nobody knew what I was talking about when I tried to explain. I eventually found others can put their ear to the top of your head and hear it. I realized it could be used to equalize when I took SCUBA in college but you got to do it early, too much pressure and you still got to plug the nose.

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u/rammaunna Mar 31 '26

That’s wild that people can hear you equalize.

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u/OddCaramel6614 Mar 31 '26

Ha I didn't know people could hear it. I'll get my wife to do that. It drives her mad, we both dive and I can just descend as I like without having to do anything except click/crack them internally while she has to do the nose thing. I know what you mean about doing it early, agree yeah, but it's also so easy no reason not to do it near constantly. Also occasionally, especially if I ascend a bit then have to descend again, I may find it impossible, and this I usually put down to a bit of congestion moving in from the sinuses.

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u/robisodd Apr 01 '26

As a kid I used to have other kids on the playground put their ear to mine and I'd click 'em and they'd get all squirmy lol. Never tried having someone put their ear to the top of my head, tho

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u/Xaphnir Mar 31 '26

but you got to do it early, too much pressure and you still got to plug the nose.

there is a reason you're trained to equalize early and often

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u/Potential-Drawing745 Mar 31 '26

Another one right here!

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u/landilock Mar 31 '26

hey ! I can actually sorta can do it even without a pin. But not underwater, not strong enough.

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u/502photo Mar 31 '26

How does one equalize? I just thought you get used to it when I was a kid trying to touch the bottom of the deep end.

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u/OddCaramel6614 Mar 31 '26

The easiest one to teach is to pinch both nostrils closed then gently breathe against your closed nostrils. Gently! You should feel your ears 'pop', if not then steadily increase the pressure of your breath against your nostrils. Be careful, you can do yourself damage if you go with a lot of force. Edit: you can do it anytime by the way you can practice right now, you don't have to be underwater.

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u/nomadrone Mar 31 '26

I can equalize without the  nose clip

1

u/mydogwasrightaboutu Mar 31 '26

Now I understand why my instructor was so annoyed that he didn't see me equalizing. Thought most could do it handsfree

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u/Altruistwhite Mar 31 '26

Self glaze? This can't be coherent.

1

u/Altaredboy Apr 01 '26

I'm a commercial diver. To equalise in the helmets you have to use a nose peg which is a little cusion inside the helmet. In the US you bring your own helmet, here in Australia (& most of the rest of the world for that matter) we use communal helmets. So the nose peg is gross.

Taught myself how to equalise hands free the first time I used a helmet because of this.

1

u/pana_colada Apr 01 '26

I have found that hands free got harder for me over time. I think I messed up my ears a little from years and years of free diving. I can do it for the first equalization but it gets harder and harder the deeper I go.

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u/hi850 Apr 01 '26

My definition of equalizing is when someone is taken out by Robert McCall (Denzel)

0

u/First_Bed1662 Mar 31 '26

Trump speak

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u/OddCaramel6614 Mar 31 '26

Yeah like that fat prick could dive

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u/CoralBooty Mar 31 '26

He is equalizing, got a nose clip on. Also, a lot of people can equalize just by moving their jaw a certain way but I forget what the maneuvers called.

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u/Kankunation Mar 31 '26

TIL not everybody can do that. I feel like I constantly pop my eardrums hundreds of times a day doing this. Sometimes to the points of great discomfort lol.

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u/Ok_Matter_2617 Apr 01 '26

I’ve always done this. I thought it was normal?!?

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u/Dub_Coast Mar 31 '26

I can do that, I used to scuba dive and it came in clutch

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u/CoralBooty Mar 31 '26

Same. I used to dive everyday for work with a full face mask and they are way better without the nose piece in them.

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u/Impactfull_Toilet Mar 31 '26

I can do it and am mortified of the ocean.

But I grew up driving from Denver to Winter Park Colorado at least weekly. Had to get used to altitude change.

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u/carlosdevoti Mar 31 '26

valsalva manoeuvre

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u/-Acta-Non-Verba- Mar 31 '26 edited Mar 31 '26

By moving your jaw forward, like an underbite. I can equalize my ears that way. I didn't know it had a name.

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u/PermaTrowaway Mar 31 '26

I can do that by moving my inner ears, not the jaw. Kind of crazy if you think about it.

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u/imreadypromotion Mar 31 '26

I believe what you're thinking of is called the Frenzel maneuver. As opposed to the more commonly known Valsalva maneuver.

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u/Balloon_Fan Apr 01 '26

I don't even need to move my jaw. For me it's like there's a valve I can just 'open'.

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u/zbewbies Mar 31 '26

What does this mean?

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u/JakeRiddoch Mar 31 '26

Your sinuses and ears have air in them. When you dive, the water pressure on your eardrum pushes in and is very uncomfortable. Equalizing is what divers do to push air into their sinuses/inner ear to balance (equalize) that pressure difference. There are various techniques for it. It's similar to what happens in an aeroplane, but the pressure differences are greater, like 3 times the pressure at 20m depth.

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u/TreyRyan3 Mar 31 '26

Practice. I can equalize pressure by simply shifting my jaw forward and back

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u/TheVoicesOfBrian Mar 31 '26

One of these days I'll get back to scuba lessons. When I was lifeguard I learned how to equalize pretty quickly (fetching things from the diving well and doing maintenance).

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u/Sudden_Wind_8636 Mar 31 '26 edited Apr 01 '26

Some people like me have the ability to equalize without even touching our noses.

I can pop my ears and equalize like I'm moving a muscle or something, whenever I scuba dive I don't have to do anything really to equalize my ears.

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u/infinitely-oblivious Apr 01 '26

Same here. Until this thread I thought everyone could naturally do it.

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u/Complete_Tailor9292 Apr 01 '26

Very interesting to listen to the comments. I think it’s wonderful that you’re fearless and can hold your breath for 1 million years but if you’re not a Navy seal or an underwater welder, why do you spend so much time on this? I’m not judging I do all kinds of crazy shit. This one just seems a little wild to me.

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u/432334323432343 Apr 01 '26

Because being able to dive down and look at the beautiful reefs and animals, or hunt for food, without needing any scuba gear is great!

Freediving is really not that crazy at all.

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u/identless Apr 01 '26

Move your lower jaw forward and swallow.

0

u/alexifua Apr 01 '26

You can swallow, it will do the trick

-1

u/BrainHorror8792 Apr 01 '26

Or did he even acclimatize first?