“Why do you hate the hiccups so much?” my fiancée asked me yesterday. It was a good question. My speculative answer was that I got them quite frequently as a kid, and since each jolt through my body felt quite strong, they sometimes prevented me from falling asleep. I also observed that if I got the hiccups in the morning, I was likely to get them two or three more times that same day. So I never trusted them to be gone for good once they left.
Thankfully, I now get the hiccups much less frequently. A few weeks ago, I had them for the first time in a while. As usual, the afternoon hiccups were only the vanguard. Then, they came back with a vengeance after dinner, and I found myself lying in bed, hiccing up this way and that, grunting and struggling to fall asleep.
Over the years, I’ve tried many of the countless home remedies: holding my breath, getting a jump scare, drinking lots of water, and of course the classic a schoolmate once taught me: pulling on your tongue. I believe the idea behind all of them is to interrupt the pattern long enough to give your spasming diaphragm time to relax. Once it eases back into its natural state, the jumps stop.
Sadly, none of them worked that time. I decided to focus on the simplest thing I could think of: continuing to breathe. As I sometimes do when I’m meditating, nervous, or stressed, I drew a deep breath in for as long as I could. Then, I held it for four, maybe five seconds. Finally, I slowly breathed out, also pushing as far into a full exhale as I was able to. I repeated this long breathing cycle four times, but the hiccups disappeared on the first one. They didn’t come back, and I slept like a baby.
Yesterday, at dinner, I could feel the hiccups rising again. I was trying to do to much with each breath. Eat, talk fast, gesticulate wildly about some minor problem. Sure enough, there they were. I remembered my cure from last time. “Hold on,” I told my partner. I leaned back, closed my eyes, and reset: Deep breath in. Hold for a few seconds. Long, full breath out. Once again for good measure, and voilà! No more hiccups!
In hindsight, it makes perfect sense. If the body starts acting funny on its own, why would it need vinegar, lime, sugar, water, or anything else external? Surely, what comes from inside must be curable from inside. And where better to look first than at our most basic function of existing? Breathe in. Breathe out.
But the most interesting takeaway from my new hiccup cure was that it works for many other ailments as well. Stress. Anxiety. Sadness. A hard conversation. A difficult problem at work. A physically demanding task. Not because it makes those problems disappear, but because it helps us ease into them, then do what needs to be done. Whether for the hiccups or any other challenge: Start with breathing.