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Comment by bartvk | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, I also use it for that. I've asked people the question, "can you click your ears"? Of course, they don't understand me, because it's such a vague question. I started asking, "can you relieve your ear pressure without moving anything else", and most people answer no. One person who dived, answered "yes, of course!" like it's something all people can.

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I can do that, as well, and it has a practical purpose when going hiking in the mountains or scuba diving. But nobody I've talked to about it understand what I mean, and I can't even explain what the technique is; I'm tensing of some muscles, certainly, but I can't explain how and which ones they are.

I learned to do it by isolating what made my ears pop when I yawn. I explain it as “kinda like yawning without opening your mouth” which seems to work.

This is how I explain it. When I first started scuba diving and explained to the instructor that it wasn't an issue to pop my ears, he was kind of horrified and was like no don't yawn underwater to do that. He didn't seem to understand, no matter how many times I explained it, that I can do it without actually yawning. You just like... mimic the start of a yawn. And then can continue it into a full actual yawn if you want to.

If it helps, I'm reasonably sure it's the soft palate muscles. To cause the effect you're describing, I visualize tensing a muscle that runs directly from one ear to the other, through the middle of my skull.

It's one of those things where trying to describe it to someone who physically can't do it or doesn't know how to may make them question your judgment and/or sanity.

I don't have tinnitus nor "ear rumble", and I can't visibly wiggle my ears -- but I can reliably equalize air pressure (eg in airplanes or car rides with altitude changes) by inducing a yawn (via swallowing-like action in my upper throat) and/or moving my jaw side to side.

If someone doesn't know how to do it, they could still learn it

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valsalva_maneuver

That’s not the same thing, I believe.

It's not the same thing, but it would allow them to

> "[...] relieve your ear pressure without moving anything else"

And I just realized that I meant the Frenzel Maneuver, which I always forget the name of. OK you need a nose clip, but besides that it's hands free.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frenzel_maneuver

Frenzel is not done by controlling the muscles in the ear. It's done by controlling your epiglottis and your tongue and push air against a blocked nose. So while it's hands free, it's not the same.[1]

With controlling the muscles in the ear, one can do it without a nose clip. It's called BTV (or VTO sometimes in English)[2], and instead of forcing air in to open the eustachian tube, you just open it by muscles.

[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ear_clearing [2]: https://www.freedivinginstructors.com/article/204

I used to scuba dive, and yes - can "click my ears" while breathing freely through my nose and/or mouth. We were taught to use Valsalva when feeling pressure during ascent/descent, and after a while I found I was able to just use the right muscles voluntarily instead.

BTV or Jan Dow sound closest to what's being described in this thread.

To me, it "feels" kind of like moving the base of my tongue sideways and tensing my bottom jaw (in the same way I would pre-yawn).

That second link is a gold mine. Thank you so much for sharing.

I've known how to do the basic BTV/VTO for many years, but it wasn't quite enough for me to equalize pressure while diving (without descending very slowly, I suppose). Just a few minutes with the techniques on that page has already improved my ability dramatically.

Cool, hope it will be of use! I freedived for years before trying scuba, so for scuba I have no issues. With the head up and all air going there, my VTO is good enough.

But for freediving with the air going towards the stomach and much faster descent it's still a bit tricky. One thing is if I'm not equalizing quickly enough, no amount of force I can muster will open the tubes again without actually doing a more classic pinch nose technique. Doing a classic equalize you will often "overblow" air in and can descend a bit before needing to equalize again. But with VTO you're only equalizing to a perfect balance so will need to make sure to keep equalizing to not get under pressure. But of course not as much hassle hands free, I try to just do click-click-click continuously, almost every kick down to remind myself to keep it open. But yeah, if I get too much under-pressure I'm not able to open it again hands free.

I also feel head angle matters a lot, so trying to not bend the neck too much to look down, but instead swim down while looking "straight ahead" instead of where you're actually going helps for me.

That only allows you to increase the pressure in your inner ear, but not decrease like opening them does. For example, it would be useful while an airplane is descending, but it wouldn't help while ascending.

There is, however, a simple trick anyone can do to equalize the pressure both ways: swallow. Works wonders with babies and toddlers.

valsalva involves moving your hands

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