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5 year old translation:

Tube from ear to neck get squished and reduce the amount of sound that makes it to your ear drum.

ty

Tube goes brrrrr

The dampening of the eardrum occurs during a yawn because a muscle, tensor tympani, contracts somewhat immobilizing the eardrum. This muscle is a safety feature which helps prevent damage from loud sounds and contracts involuntarily although some ppl can cause it to tense on purpose. Speech therapist.

> tensor tympani

Relevant Wikipedia: tensor tympani muscle

> The tensor tympani is a muscle within the middle ear, located in the bony canal above the bony part of the auditory tube, and connects to the malleus bone. Its role is to dampen loud sounds, such as those produced from chewing, shouting, or thunder. Because its reaction time is not fast enough, the muscle cannot protect against hearing damage caused by sudden loud sounds, like explosions or gunshots.

This is incorrect. Yawning actually widens the entrance to the eustachian tube, which is why it helps with "blocked" hearing. The tensor timpani is the reason why.

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its called auditory recruitment. basically, when we yawn, the muscles in our middle ear contract and that can mess with the movement of the eardrum and the tiny bones in our ear. these changes can alter the way sound waves are transmitted and result in temporary changes in hearing.

I can make my ear tubes go brrrr.

I think I'm one of those who can contract it voluntarily. I do it by like, tensing up my skull although I can only make it last barely a second.

It is a muscle that we tympani rumblers must hone. Do your daily tympani lifts, you can rumble out the droning if that person who you’ve already hit with “wow that’s crazy” twice but they keep going.

Same! Was just doing it now reading this post lol

Weak, I can do...10 seconds (I just timed it), now my ears feel tired.

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And of course we have our own sub /r/earrumblersassemble

I've always been able to tense my ears and doing it creates this loud rumbling sound. my whole life i've been confused by what was happening there and why, and now i finally know! thank you for solving this mystery

When you are 74, trying to be useful on the internet is tough, glad to be of help, ha.

TIL some people cannot do this on purpose

For sure, idk what the percentage is.

I'll be asking all my friends on discord I'll tell you what

I gotta know now just how Super I really am, this will determine the course of my life

It’s good to have goals

Wow, I've thought for 20 years now that I was alone in being able to do this, because I have never heard it mentioned by anyone, ever.

I've also noticed while listening to music on headphones that yawning makes the tempo increase. Does this have something to do with air compression?

And why does it happen sometimes if you stand up too fast???

The contraction of the muscle tightens the eardrum so I imagine that would increase the pitch of what you are hearing. The speed or tempo wouldn’t change but with the frequency going up a bit, music might be perceived as a tempo change. Not really an area of specialty for me, just had the basics covered in grad school.

Ah yeah that makes sense

Wait!!-- So that thing I can do where I make my ears have a sound like a low thunder roll(I assume the rumble) is a common thing?!?

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There's a sub for that?💀

Basically as your mouth opens your ears close.

A bit off topic but some bats use this to their advantage in that they can yell extremely loud (echlocation) but not become defined by the sound of their own screams.

Rule 3443: There is a sub for everything

Apparently. Ya, I can do that too.

Wait, it can actually be used to help prevent hearing damage from loud noises.

For example, I could flex the muscle to get near a generator to shut it off without putting in ear plugs and lessen my risk of damaging my eardrum?

It also tends to alter your hearing because it opens the eustachian tube, equalising the pressure on each side of the ear drum

https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/001064.htm