Friday FYI: Itchy Throat

Doing what you couldn’t the way you should.

It could’ve been that not- quite-ripe kiwi. Or your overcarbonated caffeine fix. Or a cat hair from your roommate’s annoying feline. Whatever it was, your throat is itching and it’s driving you crazier than said cat’s dry-humping habit. Worst part: you can’t exactly scratch it.

Well, actually, you can.

Pull on your earlobe and massage it between your thumb and index finger. This stimulates the nerves in the ear, which creates a reflex in the throat, which in turn causes a tiny muscle spasm. That spasm does what your hand can’t — or shouldn’t — and “scratches” that maddening itch.

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Friday FYI: Toothache Be Gone

How a Segway can make your toothache go away.

Reason #138 to stop hating on Canadians: in a 1980 study, they found a neat trick to make toothache go away without even parting your lips. All you need is an ice cube and a loser to sign-diss.

Fine, you don’t really need the loser — you just need to rub the ice cube on the V-shaped area that forms between your thumb and your index finger when you show that dude on the Segway just what you think of him: 5-7 minutes should do.

That V-shaped area contains the nerve endings of neurological pathways connected to brain centers that control the sensation of pain in the hands and face. Rubbing the ice cube on it helps block those centers — 90% of the study participants reported this technique helped nix the toothache. (The other 10% probably owned Segways.)

Nifty, eh?

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Friday FYI: Stop the Hiccups

Why anticipation makes things not happen but helps your friends’ love lives.

Your buddy’s got the hiccups right before a big date and just can’t make it stop? Be a hero: ask him to pay attention and give you a sign as he feels the next hiccup coming on, right before it happens.

It’ll never come.

Before you scream “Witch!,” here’s how it happens: pure brain geekery. You see, the hiccups are essentially a series of involuntary, spasmodic contractions of the diaphragm. Unlike voluntary contractions like breathing and blinking, involuntary ones like the hiccups and your heartbeat are orchestrated by parts of your brain you can’t directly command.

But when you ask your buddy to predict the next hiccup, you’re essentially messing with his brain: because one can’t predict what one can’t control, it essentially forces the brain’s inner control freak to turn its attention to the pesky spasms and switch the involuntary contractions off.

Think of it as reverse psychology on a neurological level.

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