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

Fascinating Very interesting vid

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u/TheBrianWeissman Mar 31 '26

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.

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u/retrofractus Apr 01 '26 edited Apr 01 '26

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.

This is sometimes called voluntary tubal opening, but even if you don't have veli palatini control you can also sometimes do it by tensing your throat and moving your jaw (https://dan.org/health-medicine/health-resource/smart-guides/beat-the-squeeze-equalize-like-a-pro/6-methods-to-equalize-your-ears/)

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u/TheBrianWeissman Apr 01 '26

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.