In Reply to: It may damage your ear drums posted by rob_two on Thursday, 19. January 2006 at 18:37 Bali Time:
No need to worry. You can not damage your ears if you use this technique (pinching the nose and sharply breathing out while keeping the mouth closed). This method, valsalvar (phonetically correct but don't rely on the spelling), which simply equalises inner ear pressure to outside pressure is taught to all military aircrew in Australia and everywhere else that I am aware of. The only problem can be, if you have a cold or some other similar problem it can resule in your inner ear being invaded by fluids. That is the major reason why aircrew are not supposed to fly when suffering from colds, flu or any type of inner ear infection.
Cheers
Maverick