How to Equalize in SCUBA

Who can't remember diving into the deep end of the pool and feeling the pressure on your ears? When the atmospheric pressure around you changes, you can tell. Water pressure increases the deeper you get, and can become too painful to endure unless the pressure is relieved by equalization techniques. Whether you are free diving, snorkeling, or using SCUBA, divers are taught this equalization process early in the training.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. Be aware of the air spaces in your body. Ears and sinuses are affected most by increasing pressure. During descent, water pressure increases and will push on your body's air spaces, compressing them. You will start to feel pain. Pain can also be felt in your teeth with fillings, lungs and around your air mask.

2. Pinch your nostrils closed.

3. Try to blow gently, very gently, through your blocked nose with your mouth closed as you begin your descent. This will direct air into the air spaces in your ear and sinus, pushing the water pressure out.

4. If that doesn't clear it enough, swallow and wiggle your jaw from side to side to equalize.

5. Do both. For some people swallowing and wiggling the jaw at the same time as blowing through a blocked nose works successfully.

6. Equalize before you feel painful pressure. Descend slowly. Equalize every few feet while you are descending. Continue this process as you descend to compensate for the increasing pressure.

7. Discontinue the dive if you can't reach equalization are a few attempts. Don't force it or you can cause an injury to yourself. Sometimes equalization doesn't work because the water pressure holds the air passages closed.

Tips & Warnings

• Congestion plugs your air passages, making equalization impossible. Do not use medication to clear congestion and go diving anyway because it may wear off underwater or have other undesirable side effects that will create problems.

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