The popping sensation in your ears during a flight happens because the air pressure inside your middle ear doesn’t match the rapidly changing cabin pressure. Your body has a built-in fix: a small tube connecting each middle ear to the back of your throat, which opens briefly when you swallow or yawn to let air flow through and equalize the pressure. The problem is that this tube stays closed at rest, and during a fast descent it can’t keep up on its own. The good news is that a few simple techniques, timed correctly, can keep your ears comfortable for the entire flight.
Why Your Ears Pop in the First Place
Your middle ear is a sealed air pocket behind the eardrum. A narrow passage called the Eustachian tube connects it to the back of your nose and throat. When you swallow or yawn, two small muscles contract to pull this tube open for a fraction of a second, letting air pass through so that the pressure on both sides of your eardrum stays equal. That brief equalization is the “pop” you hear.
On a plane, the cabin pressure drops during climb and rises again during descent. If the tube can’t open fast enough, the pressure difference pushes your eardrum inward or outward, causing that familiar stuffed, painful feeling. Descent is typically worse than ascent because the tube has a harder time opening against rising external pressure. The pressure change is steepest in the final minutes before landing, when the aircraft drops closest to ground level.
The Best Techniques to Equalize
All of these work by forcing or coaxing air through your Eustachian tubes. Try the gentlest option first and move to more forceful ones if needed.
- Swallowing or chewing gum. The simplest method. Swallowing activates the muscles that pull the tubes open. Chewing gum keeps you swallowing continuously, which is why it’s the most popular in-flight trick.
- Yawning. A wide yawn stretches the same muscles even more forcefully than swallowing. If a real yawn won’t come, fake one by opening your jaw as wide as possible while pushing it slightly forward and down.
- The Toynbee maneuver. Pinch your nostrils shut and swallow at the same time. The swallowing motion opens the tubes while your closed nose compresses a small pocket of air against them. This is gentle and effective for most people.
- The Valsalva maneuver. Pinch your nostrils shut and blow gently through your nose with your mouth closed. The pressure in your throat pushes air up through the tubes. Keep the blow gentle: forcing too hard can raise fluid pressure in your inner ear and do more harm than good.
- The Frenzel maneuver. Pinch your nostrils, close the back of your throat as if about to lift something heavy, then make the sound of the letter “K.” This pushes the back of your tongue upward and compresses air against the tube openings without straining.
If one technique doesn’t produce a pop after a few tries, switch to another. Combining approaches also works: pinch your nose, blow gently, and swallow simultaneously.
When to Start (Timing Matters)
Most people wait until their ears already hurt, which makes equalization harder because the pressure difference has already pushed the Eustachian tube closed. Start swallowing or chewing gum as soon as the plane begins its descent, well before you feel any discomfort. Flight attendants usually announce the start of descent about 20 to 30 minutes before landing. That announcement is your cue.
During climb, the pressure change is more gradual and your ears often equalize passively, sometimes without you noticing. Still, chewing gum or sipping water during takeoff is a good habit. The critical window is descent, especially the last few minutes before touchdown when the cabin pressure rises fastest.
Decongestants for Stuffy Noses
A cold, allergies, or a sinus infection can swell the tissue around the Eustachian tube opening, making it much harder to equalize. If you’re congested, a decongestant nasal spray containing oxymetazoline (sold as Afrin) or phenylephrine can shrink that swelling and restore your tube’s ability to open. Use the spray about 30 minutes before descent begins.
An oral decongestant like pseudoephedrine (Sudafed) also helps. A clinical trial found that taking 120 mg of pseudoephedrine at least 30 minutes before departure significantly reduced ear pain in adults who regularly experienced barotrauma while flying. Because oral decongestants take longer to kick in, take it before the flight rather than mid-air. Avoid using decongestant nasal sprays for more than three consecutive days, as they can cause rebound congestion that leaves you more stuffed up than before.
Do Pressure-Filtering Earplugs Work?
Several brands sell earplugs marketed specifically for flying, claiming they slow the rate of pressure change reaching your eardrum. The evidence is not encouraging. A controlled study comparing pressure-equalizing earplugs to placebo earplugs found no difference in middle ear pressure changes after descent from cruising altitude. Ears wearing the active earplugs actually scored worse on clinical examination than those wearing the placebo. The earplugs did reduce noise, which some passengers appreciated, but they did not prevent barotrauma. Your money is better spent on a pack of gum.
Keeping Babies and Young Children Comfortable
Young children can’t follow instructions to swallow on command or perform a Valsalva maneuver, so you need to trigger swallowing for them. Breastfeeding or offering a bottle during takeoff and descent works well because sucking and swallowing happen continuously. A pacifier serves the same purpose if your child isn’t hungry. Keep the baby sitting upright while drinking from a bottle to avoid fluid backing up into the ear.
One important detail: try to keep your child awake during takeoff and landing. During sleep, we swallow far less often, so the pressure has more time to build without being equalized. If you know your child regularly gets ear pain on flights, giving a dose of children’s acetaminophen or ibuprofen about 30 minutes before takeoff or landing can take the edge off.
What to Do if the Pain Doesn’t Go Away
Mild ear fullness after a flight usually resolves within a few hours as your Eustachian tubes gradually equalize. If the discomfort lingers beyond that, or if you notice drainage or bleeding from the ear, fever, or severe pain, those are signs of possible barotrauma that needs medical attention. In most cases a doctor will find fluid or mild inflammation behind the eardrum that clears on its own, but persistent symptoms occasionally indicate a small tear in the eardrum or fluid buildup that benefits from treatment.