Ask Lemmy

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!

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.

Edit: Might as well include a NIH article on the matter.

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.

It's all placebo. Whatever you truly believe will cure them cures them. Once you figure this out you can just sort of meditate them away.

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.

Dying. Works every time first time and they never come back.

I usually just breathe in as much as I can and hold my breath until I need another gasp of air. It usually goes away after two or three times.

Lying on your back and pressing your knees to your chest is another way to get them to stop that works for me.

In the order I try them, usually the first one works for me:

Hold my breath, cold shower, go for a run.

A spoonful of peanut butter usually does the trick for me or my kids.

Hiccups come from a part of our brain that’s much less evolved. It’s the same thing that fish use to push water through their gills.

And just like breathing, it’s involuntary.

You just have to wait it out until that part of your brain stem remembers it doesn’t need to do that anymore.

Say this out loud:

"I am not a fish."

Repeat as necessary.

https://www.wired.com/2008/02/evolution-expla/

I hold my breath for 2 breaths in a row. Works every. Single. Time.

Tablespoon of pickle juice. You're then going to have the urge to eat a pickle. Don't do it - they'll come back.

Try to burp. Especially right after a hiccup.

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.

Chug down a big glass of water on a single breath.

Boo!

Did it worked?

When someone else has the hiccups, cup your hands together (like you're about to pour water in them), hold them in front of them and excitedly tell them repeatedly (in a loud-ish, hurried voice like you're about to miss out on the chance of a lifetime):

" Quick! Hiccup in my hands! Hurry up! Do it! Hiccup in my hands!"

Gotta do it quickly and unexpectedly enough to surprise them. They'll either be so surprised that they forget the hiccup, or they will actually try to do it but be so focused on it that they won't be able to.

It's got a pretty high success rate for when I've tried it.

Swallow a pinch of salt. Don't let it dissolve on your tongue; just swallow.

Not sure if anyone has said this, but hold your breath and swallow three times. The last one can be a little tough, but it has worked for me I'd say 90% of the time.

Hold my breath while thinking of a soothing song. Alternatively, actively try to hiccup.

Mouthful of water, then fingers in both ears and swallow.

For me I get a >90% success rate

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.

100 yard sprint always did it for me

Drink a cup of sugar water. Works every time.

The weirdest one I've tried that works is take your pinky finger and just barely, almost imperceptivly, rub your ear lobe with it. The only reason I can think of why it works is because you focus on not touching your ear too hard or too soft and just... Forget to hiccup? 🤷🏻‍♂️

For me, it reliably works to drink a big glass of water. But probably just a me thing...

The only trick that worked for me was this.

Had been hiccuping for probably 5 minutes. Nothing working. Someone came up to me and just said “hiccup for me now” just waited for that hiccup. Kept asking for me to hiccup for maybe 30 seconds to a minute. Gone. No more hiccups.