How to equalise your ears when diving: 7 techniques

Water pressure rises as you go down and pushes on your eardrum. Unless air gets into the middle ear behind it to balance the pressure, the eardrum is squeezed — that's the pain. Equalising lets air in through the Eustachian tubes.

• Valsalva: pinch your nose and gently exhale through it. Don't blow hard and don't hold the pressure for more than about five seconds. DAN notes it doesn't activate the muscles that open the tubes.
• Passive: needs no effort — it usually happens on its own during ascent.
• Voluntary tubal opening: tense your soft palate and throat and push your jaw forward and down, as if starting a yawn. Takes practice.
• Toynbee: pinch your nose and swallow.
• Frenzel: pinch your nose, close the back of your throat as if straining to lift something, and make the sound of a 'K'.
• Lowry: pinch your nose and exhale and swallow at the same time.
• Edmonds: tense your soft palate and throat, push your jaw forward and down, and do a Valsalva.

The one that works for you. DAN recommends learning several, because many are hard until practised, and suggests practising in front of a mirror so you can see your throat muscles move.

Don't force it. DAN warns that forcing air against the soft tissues just locks them shut, and that blowing too hard can damage the inner ear. Stop descending, rise a little, try gently again — and if it still won't clear, end the dive. Diving with a cold makes all of this harder.