I’ve tried many things before, but in the past couple days I’ve found that eating a packet or two of mustard tends to get rid of hiccups.
What sort of tricks do you folks have?
Easy! Just disbelieve them!
Say the following out loud:
Hiccups are a spasm of the diaphragm
A spasm is defined as a random tensing of a muscle
If the hiccups are random, they will not appear in a pattern
Therefore these hiccups do not exist.
If you hiccup part way through, you have to start over. Once you get through the whole thing, your hiccups are cured.
Ok, now hear me out. This isn’t just a joke, I’ve had at least two people that I hadn’t seen in years call me up and say, I need you to tell me the hiccup cure, now!
My best theory as to why it works, is that you’re focusing on repeating the words fast enough, and/or it makes you breath irregularly and breaks the hiccups. Or maybe it’s just the magical power of the mind! Oooooooooh!
Oh. It never works when you’re drunk. I don’t know why, but drink hiccups seem to be resistant to the method.
You can also just memorize and recite this, comes in handy for more than just hiccups:
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
There’s something about focus or attention. If I hiccup, as soon as I realize it’s happening it stops. If I’m drunk I might not notice for a bit and the hiccups will continue until I can bring my will to bear on them.
get warm and eat a little snack
There’s an evil part of me, a deep, dark, deranged demon inside me, that hopes the mustard packets keep working, but that it takes more and more each time.
In the order I try them, usually the first one works for me:
Hold my breath, cold shower, go for a run.
I hold my breath and “push” the air blocking my lungs from emptying with my mouth/throat.
A spoonful of peanut butter usually does the trick for me or my kids.
Same! It’s 100% effective for me. Never had it not work
Here’s a method that’s always worked for me and others.
Get a glass of water, cool is preferred but any reasonable temperature is ok.
Take small, tiny, repeated sips from the rim of the glass, like an infant on a nipple, drinking and swallowing the water.
Do this for ten-twenty seconds and you’ll be rid of them.
Chug down a big glass of water on a single breath.
Try to burp. Especially right after a hiccup.
I would add that you can swallow air to create the need to burp.
This will sound like a joke, but is 100% true.
The most effective, clinically proven, method to cure hiccups is anal digital stimulation. Finger your butthole. You don’t have to go deep, unless you want to, just tease the opening though. You can have someone tongue punch your fart box as well because the method of stimulation doesn’t matter and I am sure the research ran out of funding before testing alternative methods of stimulation.
I think I’ll just squirt some mustard up my ass, but thank you for the advice 👍
You’re doing twice the work, but I ain’t here to kink shame.
Swallow a pinch of salt. Don’t let it dissolve on your tongue; just swallow.
Swallow a teaspoon of sugar. I read this when I was a kid, and it has always done the trick for me EVERY TIME I’ve done it.
My partner suggested this to me once and I thought, “nothing to lose” so I gave it a go.
Correlation does not imply causation, so I can’t guarantee that the sugar is doing anything at all, but every time except once I’ve had a teaspoon of sugar with hiccups, they have stopped.
To that end, I’ll be doing it as long as it keeps on seeming to have an effect.
Hold my breath while thinking of a soothing song. Alternatively, actively try to hiccup.
Drink a cup of sugar water. Works every time.
Take a glass of water, bend over forward, drink from the opposite side of the glass while your head is upside down. Drink the whole thing. Cured!
Just quickly drinking a full glass of water usually does the trick
I used to do this with a straw while head was upside down. Worked really well when I was younger but haven’t tried it recently.
I do the thing where you drink water while rubbing your tongue on the roof of your mouth. Success rate is pretty low tbh.
This is it, although I just put the water in my mouth and bend over then swallow. Swallowing water while upside down = 100% cure.
All the mythological cures rely on one specific thing: focusing on a task or overriding your brain’s autonomic systems with adrenaline (get scared). Don’t think about it and do something else with as much concentration as you can will. Sorry if you’re ADHD.
Yeah, I’m probably ADHD, and not easily scared. Hell, I handle snakes and spiders and shit sometimes. Good luck scaring me…
You’ll never own a home or save enough for retirement. The entire planet is under incredible stress and we’re literally making it uninhabitable for ourselves. Your tax dollars often go towards killing innocent people in other countries. You may have left the oven on.
If that didn’t do it, I’m out of ideas.
Trying that fear factor approach I see. Well thank you for the thought, but I’m not easily scared, and that trick doesn’t seem to work for me anyways.
Go for a run or cold shower. Get your heart rate up, similar effect.
