• Question: Why can you sometimes hear your heart beat in your ear?

    Asked by hazellwh to Helen, Jenni, Mark, Martin, Stu on 16 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Jenni Tilley

      Jenni Tilley answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      For the same reason you can feel your pulse in your wrist / neck. Your veins ‘pulse’ (expand and contract) as your heart beats as a result of the blood being pumped through your veins. In your ear, this pulsing creates tiny sounds waves, which make your ear drum vibrate. Since the way you hear things is by detecting vibrations of your ear drum, when the sound waves created by the veins in your ear make your ear drum vibrate you’re able to ‘hear your heart beat’!

    • Photo: Mark Burnley

      Mark Burnley answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      Jenni is spot on as usual! Interesting, you are hearing moving blood hitting stationary blood, and the same principle is used to measure blood pressure (but I won’t get into that!), not your heart beat. In fact, even with a stethoscope you can’t hear your heart beat. The “lub-dub” sound you can hear in this case is the valves inside the heart slamming shut as the heart muscle contracts and forces blood to the lungs and around the body.

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