We’ve reached that point in the summer. You know the one – where it’s just hot. All the time. When the dog days of summer bring relentless heat, many reach for a cold treat.

While ice cream and popsicles bring needed relief, they can also lead to another problem for many – brain freeze. But what exactly is a brain freeze? And more importantly, how can we prevent it when trying to beat the heat.

Dr. Paul Durham, a distinguished professor of biology at Missouri State University, says it’s not so much about what you eat, but how you eat it.

“It’s the extreme cold and it’s because a lot of people put it up on their palate, you know, they take a big bite of it and they put it up there. Ice cubes would do the same thing, but we tend to hold ice cubes more on our tongue, so then that doesn’t cause that same reflex,” he says.

How can we prevent brain freeze this summer? Durham offers a few words of wisdom.

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