Nick Pelios
Freediver, Creator
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Nick Pelios
Freediver, Creator
If you’re struggling to equalize your ears and it’s starting to affect your freediving or spearfishing, Ellie Hayden has a clear message: you’re not alone, and you can fix it. Ellie is a freediving instructor and spearfishing coach from Australia, running her own business called Salty Pilgrims. With four years of teaching experience, she breaks down equalization in simple terms so divers can approach it with confidence.
When we dive, the pressure around us increases. That pressure affects the air spaces in our bodies, especially the middle ear. Behind the eardrum is a small pocket of air. As pressure builds with depth, that pocket shrinks, and the eardrum is pulled inward. This is what causes the discomfort and pain most divers know all too well.
Freediving should be pain-free. If you’re feeling pain in your ears, you’re not equalizing correctly. Each time you equalize, you push air from your lungs up into your mouth, use muscles like the tongue and larynx to pressurize it, and then move it through the eustachian tubes into the middle ear. That pop resets the eardrum back to its neutral position.
On every descent, this has to be done continuously. The deeper you go, the more often you need to equalize. The key is to do it before any discomfort sets in, not after.
Ellie points out a method she sees most beginners use, and it’s one she doesn’t recommend: the Valsalva maneuver. This is done with pinched nostrils while blowing as if you’re trying to clear your nose into a tissue. By tensing the diaphragm and forcing air up from the lungs, you create pressure in the mouth that then moves into the middle ear.
It sounds workable, but it’s limited. When you’re upside down underwater, air doesn’t want to move upward. As your lungs compress, it gets even harder. For most divers, this technique stops working at around 6 to 10 meters.
Ellie’s main advice is simple: don’t wait. Equalize before pressure has a chance to build, and keep doing it regularly throughout the dive. By understanding what’s happening inside your ears and avoiding the wrong techniques, you’ll set yourself up for a much more comfortable experience in the water.