The human body is a complex and weird machine. A well-oiled series of systems made out of meat, fat, and bones, there are also little quirks and glitches you probably didn’t know about. Try out some of these bizarre human tricks.
1. You can cut off a sneeze.
99 percent of the time, if you need to sneeze, sneeze, because that’s your body’s way of fighting an irritant, and you can also hurt yourself if you do. (So say those who know, like ear, nose, and throat doctors.) But if you’re, say, giving a presentation, or trying to convince a judge to not throw you in jail, you might want to stop your sneeze. Place a finger tip or lay your finger just under your nose and above your lip, and boom, sneeze averted.
2. How to cure brain freeze.
It’s going to happen: You’re going to get ice cream and you’re going to eat it too fast because ice cream is delicious and it’s a race against time to get it in your mouth before it melts. When that horrific but brief ice cream headache ensues, NPR’s How To Do Everything podcast says you should hold your tongue against the roof of your mouth.
3. Trick your brain into letting you touch your toes.
There’s something about reading a paragraph of sentences backwards that pre-occupies the brain and tricks it into forgetting that you can’t actually touch your toes, because after you read a handful of sentences in the opposite order, you can totally touch your toes.
4. Unclog your sinuses with only your tongue and finger!
We can explain. Press your tongue to the roof of your mouth for a second, then apply pressure right between your eyebrows. Keep alternating until your sinuses drain.
5. Tug on your ears to achieve superpowered hearing.
Yep — messing with your ears to “open them up” actually can make you hear better. Pull back and then push in the flaps on your ears. (Not your earlobes, the firm ones that rest against your head.) This eliminates peripheral and background noise, allowing you to better hear someone standing next to you in a loud and crowded place.