What to know

You Should Never Sleep During Takeoff or Landing

Avoid the urge to sleep during takeoff or landing, it can damage your eardrums

While it is the best way to pass time during flights, it could be hazardous to sleep during takeoff and landing.

Many people around the world, myself included, rushes to fall asleep during a long flight and hope not to wake up before landing. While sleeping during flights is a good idea for so many reasons, there’s one real reason you should never sleep during takeoff or landing.

An airplane itself is an ideal place to catch some dreams, no one has ever complained about an uncomfortable or middle seat, it being too warm, too cold, too noisy, people seem to just doze off.

While it is perfectly safe to sleep during flights, there’s a surprising reason to why you should fight the urge until after takeoff and wake up before landing.

Takeoff and landing cause changes to the cabins air pressure, and if you happen to be sleeping, you could be preventing your body from naturally adapting to new pressures and cause severe damage to your eardrums.

We all know the effect a quick change in altitude has on the ear – it changes the ears internal air pressure. When this happens, it causes a vacuum in the Eustachian tubes, which is why we feel like as if they were blocked.

When this happens, your natural reaction would be to yawn, swallow, chew, block your nose and mouth and try to exhale, but not if you’re asleep.

To avoid painfully blocked ears, try not to sleep during either takeoff or landing, and keep a piece of gum in your mouth.

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