Improve Your Equalization

All methods for equalizing your ears are simply ways to open the lower ends of your Eustachian tubes so air can enter. Most divers learn the Valsalva maneuver, but there are other equalization techniques divers may wish to try.

Valsalva Maneuver 

Pinch Your Nose and Exhale 

Pinch your nostrils (or close them against your mask skirt) and gently blow through your nose. The resulting overpressure in your throat usually forces air up your Eustachian tubes.

But the Valsalva maneuver has three problems:

It does not activate muscles which open the Eustachian tubes, so it may not work if the tubes are already locked by a pressure differential.

It’s too easy to blow hard enough to damage something.

Blowing against a blocked nose raises your internal fluid pressure, including the fluid pressure in your inner ear and possibly leading to an inner ear injury such as a round window rupture. So don’t blow too hard, and don’t maintain pressure for more than five seconds.

Swallowing—and various methods of equalizing—are all ways of opening the normally closed Eustachian tubes, reducing the pressure differential between the outer ear and inner ear. The safest clearing methods utilize the muscles of the throat to open the tubes. Unfortunately, the Valsalva maneuver that most divers are taught does not activate these muscles, but forces air from the throat into the Eustachian tubes.