the.com/brain freeze
Your palate's revenge for eating ice cream like you're in a hurry.
means That sudden stabbing headache behind your forehead or temples caused by swallowing something cold too fast.
from A plainly descriptive 20th-century American coinage — 'brain' plus 'freeze' — rather than any ancient word. The science: cold hitting the roof of the mouth (the palate) rapidly chills blood vessels there, which constrict then rebound-dilate, and nerves in that area (served by the trigeminal nerve, which also covers the forehead) misread the signal as pain coming from inside the head. Doctors call it 'sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia,' which nobody but a doctor would ever say out loud — so 'brain freeze' is the folk name that actually stuck.
- real name
- sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia, which hurts to say too
- cause
- cold hits roof of mouth, blood vessels panic-constrict
- fix
- press tongue to roof of mouth, warm it fast
- duration
- usually gone in under a minute, feels longer