Why does drinking something cold make you cough?

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📓 The short answer

Cold drinks may trigger coughing by rapidly cooling the esophagus and, by proximity, the trachea, which can cause the airways to tighten and lead to coughing.

📚 The long answer

While I've personally only experienced brain freezes when drinking a cold beverage, this reader-submitted question taught me that some people experience post-cold-drink coughing (or, as I like to say, an "iced cough-ee.")

Although there hasn't been much medical research on this phenomenon, the culprit may be the close proximity of our breathing and eating tubes.

We breathe air through our nose and mouth, where it then travels down our trachea into the lungs. Food goes on a similar path through the mouth but hops over to the esophagus to land in our stomach. While these tubes do a great job of directing traffic, the esophagus and the trachea sit side-by-side.

When we eat or drink something ice-cold, the temperature of the esophagus — and, by proximity, the trachea — suddenly drops. This rapid cooling may trigger a bronchospasm, or a brief tightening of the airways, in an attempt to warm the cold air entering your lungs. With your breathing tubes constricted, your body naturally triggers a cough reflex in order to clear any obstructions.

In other words, drinking something cold triggers a domino effect: cold liquid cools the esophagus → which cools the trachea → which causes bronchospasm to warm the air → which causes us to cough.

While this initial cough after drinking a cold beverage usually subsides quickly, the impact to our breathing can persist for a while. One study found that drinking cold water, compared to room temperature water, led to a significant decrease in lung function for up to 15 minutes.

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​Sources for this week's newsletter​

🌐 Wikipedia article of the week

​Yukigassen​

"Yukigassen is a snowball fighting-competition played between two teams of seven players each on a pitch of snow 10 meters wide and 36 meters long. The pitch is divided into halves, and each half has three defensive "shelters" and the team flag. The goal of the game is to either capture the other team's flags or to eliminate all of the other team's players by hitting them with snowballs, 90 of which are made prior to the start of gameplay. The game has been compared to capture the flag, dodgeball, and paintball."

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👀 Catch up on other curious questions

• ​Why is “W” called double U and not double V?​​
• ​Why are skyscrapers made of glass?​​
• ​Where does trash go?​​

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