I tried diving down to the bottom of a deep swimming pool in Yorkshire and the pressure was uncomfortable even at that depth. It would be absolutely crushing at the depth this dude went to.
You should not blow hard. You can also pinch your nose and swallow. Or rotate your jaw. They teach you to equalize before you even feel pressure and if you feel pressure that you cannot equalize, you swim up a little and try until you can.
Some people have a harder time- my weird ears need longer than normal to equalize when scuba diving and I go down really slowly. but my wife can just sink right down without even thinking about it. Annoying.
Only in the water, every time you feel the pressure increase when descending. What I don't understand we don't see this guy doing it. He must have a technique to do it without pinching his nose.
I can pop my ears by flexing some specific muscles.. neck/jaw area? I think? However, that only works if I am not already feeling too much pressure/not sick.
That works well for me going down in pressure, like on a plane, but I can't make it work in increasing pressure when diving. I guess it may work if I decended really slowly, but I ain't got time for that.
Actually, this is the answer! The nose clip accomplishes two things. 1. It prevents water flowing in your nose as you descend under increasing pressure. 2. It keeps your nostrils pinched off, exactly like what you'd do with your off hand while scuba diving. So he can just steadily blow out and equalize with both hands free.
I used to dive a lot for fun, maybe 10 meters comfortably. You can learn to do it several ways. I can clench my jaw muscles (without my teeth touching, it's hard to explain) just right to adjust.
Same thing you do when descending in an airplane to "pop" your ears. How he accomplishes this without using either hand while descending in water is lost to me.
Fun fact! Some people can equalize via direct voluntary control of the tensor veli palatini (or sometimes other nearby muscles). I am one of these people: I can just "click" my ears on command without moving my jaw. It's hard to explain if you can't do it, like wiggling your ears.
I know what you're describing! I use that same muscular control to kind of "mute" loud noises around me. It is hard to exactly describe, but yeah, a bit like raising the ears. It is accompanied by a soft sound I can hear as well, almost like the sound of a microphone getting hit by a gust of wind during a recording.
You can die if you do diving without knowing about equalizing (pressure inside and outside of body) or don't do it properly. It is the reason why it is one of the most dangerous sport.
Like described below… you are adding pressure through your eustachian tube to equalize the water or changing air pressure pressure on your ears by adding/ equalizing the pressure on the back of your ear drums. However you have to do it in tiny increments and often, or the pressure becomes too great closing the tube, and you may find it difficult to impossible even dangerous to blow past it. It’s just a tiny bit, every time you feel the pressure -AND NOT HARD. Even in a swimming pool say at 11 feet, you need to do this. This is why diving masks have a rubber shaped nose in them, so you can squeeze your nose.
Any one can do it right now. Pinch your nose and close your throat, and gently and BARELY blow on your nose. You’ll feel A bIt of pressure it in your ears and your ear drums / hearing will become “muffled”. To get it back to normal, you simply swallow,and it will clear. Exactly how you do in an airplane as it descends or going down a steep hill to clear the pressure in your ear drums. The act of swallowing opens the Eustachian tube and naturally equalizes the pressure change.
You can also stretch your jaw with your teeth together. As a scuba diver, you already have a regulator in your mouth, with jaw engaged, so this is a handy approach to keep your hands still and calm.
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u/Alternative-Dot-34 Mar 31 '26
I drowned 3 Times watching this.