Man claims you can only swallow 2-3 times before your body forces you to stop

There’s a lot of things are body does, or doesn’t do, that we don’t exactly tend to think about daily.

Let’s just say our bodily functions aren’t really our Roman Empire.

But when you do focus in on something, you realise how weird it might be.

Like this bloke on TikTok, who claims you can only swallow between two to three times before your body makes you pack it in.

You’re trying it now, aren’t you? Feels weird on those extra attempts, right?

Well it did for me anyway. And if you keep trying to push it, it just seems to feel worse and worse.

I’m definitely not encouraging that by the way.

In the viral video, Jesse Beharrell is in his car as he says: “You can only swallow 2-3 times before your body forces you to stop.”

TikTok / @jessebeharrell

He then swallows before encouraging viewers to try it for themselves.

One user wrote: “OMG haha that’s true I got angry.”

And another put: “Holy s**t struggled after 2,” and one even said: “I did 6 and almost died.”

Obviously, it’s not the same for everyone, as some users managed to do way more, but a whole load admitted to finding it difficult to keep swallowing.

There were some cheats of course, who managed quite a few because they used water.

But it was evidently a real struggle for many. One user joked: “The way I almost had a stroke trying this.”

And another added: “THIS IS SUCH A RELIEF. When I'm really anxious I try to swallow too much because I think I can't then I really can't and I panic. Omfg, it's normal."

arenacreative/Getty Images

This whole swallow ‘limit’ fascination has been a thing for a while, with the number on the cap varying.

But the matter is, the majority of us have a limit to how many times we can do it.

As explained by IFLScience, a main factor to this is the diminishing amounts of saliva as we keep on swallowing.

When you normally swallow, ‘the muscles in your throat will contract in a wave-like sequence’ to move chewed food or liquid down through the oesophagus to be digested.

But this sequence of contractions (known as peristalsis) are ‘less likely to occur when people are asked to perform dry swallows’.

Therefore, as you keep on dry swallowing, our saliva starts to run out and it therefore becomes more difficult for your muscles to produce these contractions.

So basically, with some science to back it up, it actually does become nearly impossible for some to keep on dry swallowing.

Don’t panic though, just drink a little water and you’ll be good.

Topics: TikTok, Weird, Health

Jess Battison

Jess is an Entertainment Journalist with a love of all things pop culture. Her main interests include keeping up with the Twitter girlies, waiting for a new series of The Traitors and losing her voice at a Beyoncé concert. She graduated with a first in Journalism from City, University of London in 2021 and has previously worked at MyLondon.

@jessbattison_