Hiccups are nothing but spasms of your diaphragm muscle. They of course do no harm to your body, but can be embarrassing all the same when you are in a meeting or in a public gathering. At such times you desperately wish to make them stop, but just don’t know how.
Don’t let hiccups drive you nuts, here are 8 homegrown tricks that, no one told you about till now, are super-effective in stopping them instantly.
1. Have something sweet
One of the most popular hiccup cure is a spoonful of sugar. The graininess of the sugar is believed to irritate the oesophagus causing the phrenet nerves to reset themselves.
2. Have something tangy
Ideal would be a spoonful of vinegar. The shock from the acidity of the vinegar can actually put a stop to those annoying hiccups.
3. Even hot sauces work
This one is a sure-fire recipe to cure hiccups. A hot sauce due to its heat and burn qualities distracts the nerves and makes them focus instead on the heat or burn. Hiccups stop immediately.
4. How about some peanut butter
Indulge in a giant spoonful of creamy peanut butter, a classic way to solve hiccup problem. The chewing and licking-the-peanut-butter-off-your-gums-and-teeth interrupts with your swallowing and breathing pattern. Your hiccups will suddenly stop.
5. Go for the paper towel trick
Place a paper towel on top of a glass full of water. Drink the water through the towel. To suck the water you will end up putting a lot of pressure on your diaphragm, and this process counteracts the spasmodic muscle movements causing hiccups.
Would you?
6. You don’t mind chocolates, do you?
No, don’t just attack a bar of chocolate. Instead try eating powdered chocolate or cocoa power straight off a spoon. It’s not easy to eat the cocoa powder like that, and this interruption with your breathing and swallowing process actually cures hiccups.
7. Enjoy some honey
Take a mellow spoonful of honey stirred in lukewarm water, put it to the back of your tongue and then swallow it. Honey is believed to tickle the vagus nerves that in turn cures hiccups. In addition to that, honey also fights sore throat and infection.
8. Keep a brown paper bag handy
Slowly and deeply breathe into a small paper bag. With this exercise the carbon dioxide level in your blood will spike up and make your diaphragm expand and contract deeply to supple more oxygen, and in return stops the spasms causing hiccups.
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