The Science Behind Brain Freeze

You Should Know: It’s ice cream headache season. When something cold hits the roof of your mouth, the blood vessels there can shrink super fast and trigger nearby nerves, causing that icepick-to-the-forehead feeling (also known as brain freeze). It sends a pain signal through the trigeminal nerve originating in the brainstem, which explains why the ache shows up in your forehead even though the cold food or drink only touched your mouth.

Going Deeper: People who get migraines seem especially prone to intense brain freeze, since they tend to have a more reactive trigeminal nerve. And kids may get it more often than adults, but probably because they haven’t learned yet to eat and drink more slowly to avoid it.

Takeaway: Some of us are more likely to experience brain freeze than others and may need to pay particularly close attention to eating ice cream slowly to avoid the pain.

Bottom Line: If an ice cream headache still sets in, press your tongue against the roof of your mouth to warm it up. The pain should then pass pretty quickly.