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Jessi: Ughhhh. Oh, it’s ok, Squeaks, I’m fine! My head just hurt for a second there, but it’s all better now. It was an ice cream headache, or what some people call a brain freeze!

Lots of people get brain freeze sometimes. Maybe it’s happened to you, too. You’re eating ice cream, or even just drinking a very cold drink, when suddenly your head hurts.

So you stop, and maybe put a hand to your head like I just did, and the headache goes away pretty quickly. If that’s happened to you before, maybe someone told you it was because you were eating your ice cream or drinking your cold drink too fast. And it’s true that eating my ice cream more slowly would probably have helped me to avoid getting brain freeze, but the real problem wasn’t how fast or slow I was eating.

It was how cold the ice cream was! [Squeaks squeaks]. Yeah! Ice cream is really cold!

But the insides of our bodies are pretty warm. That’s a good thing — your body needs to be a certain temperature to work properly. That’s why when we get too hot, we sweat to cool down.

And when we get too cold, we shiver to warm up! Well, ice cream headaches are another thing that can happen when the inside of your body gets cold too quickly. You might already know that blood runs all throughout your body in little tubes called blood vessels.

And like the rest of the inside of your body, your blood is nice and warm! But when you eat or drink something really cold, like ice cream, the blood vessels inside of your mouth and throat suddenly get really cold, too. And then, scientists think two things happen:.

The blood vessels in the top of your mouth squeeze tighter, and the ones in your throat send lots of extra blood to your brain. [Squeaks squeaks]. It’s pretty weird to think about! But there’s a good reason for it.

When you get cold, your body tries to keep more blood in the middle of your body, and less blood in parts near the outside, like your skin. That helps keep your blood from getting too cold, so the most important parts of your body, like your heart and brain, can stay warm! It’s a little like this jar here.

I put it in the freezer for a while, and you can see that it’s not totally frozen yet. But look what happened! The water near the outside of the jar froze first, while the water on the inside stayed warmer for longer.

When you get cold, your body moves your blood toward the middle of your body so it can stay warm like the water in the middle of this jar. That’s why when you eat something cold, like ice cream, the blood vessels in your mouth squeeze tight. That way there’s less blood running through them, so your blood stays warmer for longer! [Squeaks squeaks].

You’re right, what’s happening in your throat is a little different. The blood vessels there don’t squeeze right away, but they do send lots of blood to your brain to help keep it warm! All that quick squeezing and sending blood to different places hurts, which is why you get brain freeze.

But after a few seconds, everything goes back to normal! If you get an ice cream headache and want it to go away faster, one thing you can do is press your tongue against the top of your mouth. That helps the blood vessels there warm up a little faster so the headache goes away.

But you should also tell a grown-up when your head hurts, just in case! Now that I’m feeling better, I’m going to get back to my ice cream before it melts! Thanks for joining us!

If you want to keep learning and having fun with Squeaks and me, hit the subscribe button, and don’t forget to check us out on the YouTube Kids app. We’ll see you next time, here at the Fort! ♪.