Face Dunking to Ease Anxiety?

Does Dunking Your Head in Water Ease Anxiety? Ask This Professor’s Diving Mice

Face dunking for anxiety – yeah, it’s a thing that surfaces frequently on social media. But is it a real thing?

Proponents say plunging your face into an ice-cold bowl or bucket of water serves as a quick fix to prevent brain freakout before a stressful situation. They even claim there’s science involved – something called “the diver’s reflex.”

The idea is that when your nostrils and face get wet, and you hold your breath, a survival instinct kicks in to calm you and conserve energy. Involved in the process, they say, is a bit of biological circuitry called the vagus nerve, which connects the brain with the gut.

UVA Today checked in with assistant professor of biology John Campbell, whose neurobiology lab at the University of Virginia studies the vagus nerve, to see if such claims hold water.

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Photo credit: To dunk or not to dunk? (Photo illustration by Emily Faith Morgan, University Communications)