How To Equalize Ear Pressure While Snorkeling?

The Valsalva maneuver is a common technique for equalizing ears during scuba diving, snorkeling, and swimming underwater. This involves pinching your nose closed to create a vacuum in your nose, allowing you to open your mouth more easily. Swallowing and various methods of equalizing are all ways of opening the normally closed Eustachian tubes, reducing the pressure differential between the inner ear and the surrounding water. As you descend into deeper waters while snorkeling, the pressure on your ears increases, making it crucial to equalize frequently and start equalizing before you feel any discomfort.

Equalization is the process of balancing the pressure between the inner ear and the surrounding water to prevent discomfort and potential ear injuries. If you fail to increase the pressure in your middle ears to match the pressure in your outer and inner ears, the result is painful middle ear barotrauma, the most common pressure-related ear. Proper equalization techniques and ear care can prevent everything from swimmer’s ear to long-term damage from barotrauma.

There are six methods to equalize your ears: closing the nostrils, bringing air up from the lungs into the throat, closing the glottis, and then contracting the throat. The pressure in the nasal cavity from contracting the throat opens the eustachian tubes. The best way to equalize your ears when scuba diving is to swallow hard, which should open your eustachian tubes and equalize the air space.

If you can’t equalize your ears naturally, pinch your nostrils on the outside of your mask. The key to safe equalizing is to get air to flow from the throat to the ears through the opening of the normally closed eustachian tubes. Most divers are taught to equalize by pinching their nose and blowing gently. A rough rule of thumb is to equalize the ears twice every three feet (or one meter) to maintain proper and successful equalizations to relieve pressure.