耳が飛行機で詰まる理由｜300年前の解剖学者の発見

Why Do Your Ears Pop on Airplanes?

Have you ever felt a strange popping sensation in your ears as an airplane takes off or lands?

That popping happens because of a sudden change in the air pressure around you.

Deep inside your head, a narrow passage called the Eustachian tube connects your middle ear to the back of your throat.

Normally, this tube stays closed, which keeps the pressure inside your ear steady.

But when a plane climbs or descends quickly, the air pressure outside your ear changes much faster than the pressure inside it.

This pressure difference pushes on your eardrum, and that push is exactly what you feel as discomfort.

When you swallow, yawn, or chew gum, the Eustachian tube briefly opens and lets a small bubble of air pass through.

That bubble equalizes the pressure on both sides of your eardrum, and you hear a soft pop.

In 1704, an Italian anatomist named Antonio Maria Valsalva described a simple trick for opening this tube on purpose: pinch your nose, close your mouth, and gently blow.

Doctors still call this trick the Valsalva maneuver today, and pilots, scuba divers, and even astronauts use it to protect their ears from sudden pressure changes.

So the next time your ears pop on a flight, remember that a 300-year-old anatomist had already figured out exactly why, and exactly what to do about it.