The Valsalva maneuve - Do you know what this is?

The Valsalva maneuver or Valsalva manoeuvre is performed by moderately forceful attempted exhalation against a closed airway, usually done by closing one's mouth, pinching one's nose shut while pressing out as if blowing up a balloon.

 Variations of the maneuver can be used either in medical examination as a test of cardiac function and autonomic nervous control of the heart, or to "clear" the ears and sinuses (that is, to equalize pressure between them) when ambient pressure changes, as in diving, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, or aviation.

The technique is named after Antonio Maria Valsalva, a 17th-century physician and anatomist. He described the Eustachian tube and the maneuver to test its patency (openness). He also described the use of this maneuver to expel pus from the middle ear.

The purpose of a Valsalva maneuver is to increase air pressure in the lungs, in order to help a person exert physical effort or force things out of the body.

This is how it works: Your abdominal muscles tighten up, squeezing the intestines and organs in the abdominal cavity, so that they press upward against the diaphragm - the dome-shaped muscle that separates the abdominal cavity from the chest cavity. This causes the diaphragm to bulge upward, compressing the chest cavity. Certain chest muscles also tighten to bring the rib cage down, which compresses the chest cavity even more.

Meanwhile, the larynx is neurologically programmed to close tightly around the upper airway to keep the air in the lungs from escaping. The more the abdominal muscles squeeze, the greater the air pressure becomes in the lungs, and the tighter the larynx closes. The larynx is doing one of the basic tasks for which it is designed. It is calledeffort closure.

We are all familiar with the other function of the larynx, which is phonation. That occurs when the vocal folds in the larynx are brought gently together across the airway to make the sound of our voice. But when the larynx performs effort closure during a Valsalva maneuver, it behaves very differently. The entire inside of the larynx closes tightly, like a fist, to block the air completely. As we saw in our exercise, the lips and tongue can also do this job. If for some reason your lips or tongue are blocking the airway when you start a Valsalva maneuver, they will be recruited to continue the closure. They will automatically press harder and harder to keep the air from escaping.