Leonard Ng

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How to Stop Hiccups Instantly

25.12.2016 by leonard ng // Leave a Comment

Image by Pitsch.
Image by Pitsch.

Christmas is upon us, and over the next few days many of you will be at parties where you might just eat too much, laugh too much, drink too much, and end up with hiccups.

Hiccups can be uncomfortable and embarrassing. I know. I used to get them all the time… until I devised a ridiculously simple technique to shut them off the moment they begin.

I’ve tried it out on a few people now, and it’s worked every single time. And I myself no longer get hiccups at all… or more precisely I get one, just one, and then the rest go away like magic.

Here’s the technique now. It’s my Christmas gift to you.

Understanding Hiccups: The Diaphragm

The diaphragm is a large band of muscle at the base of your lungs that plays a major role in helping you to breathe. If you take a really deep breath all the way to the base of your lungs, you can feel your diaphragm moving.

A hiccup is a strong involuntary contraction of your diaphragm, followed almost immediately by the closure of your vocal cords (producing the “hic” sound). Hiccups happen because your diaphragm has been irritated or overstressed in some way.

Once you understand this, the next step in treating hiccups becomes obvious: you want to take as much pressure off your diaphragm as you can until that muscle has had a chance to relax.

How to Fix It

Since breathing deep into your lungs is exactly what puts pressure on your diaphragm, you want to do as little of that as you can. Instead breathe high and shallowly into your lungs, using as little of your diaphragm as you can, until your diaphragm is no longer spasming (this can take up to 2 minutes or so).

In short:

lungs

Do this for 2 minutes.

Merry Christmas. Enjoy your hiccup-free life.

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Leonard Ng

Leonard Ng is fascinated with the practice of both the active and contemplative modes of life.

He is the founder of the copywriting agency Text/ure Collective, and is the author of two collections of poetry: This Mortal World and Changes and Chances.

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