Why do we have hiccups?

You’ve probably heard of lots of cures for hiccups, some of which may work once or twice, and some of which may not work at all. For example, giving someone with hiccups a sudden shock, putting something cold down their back, or even drinking a glass of water upside down from the wrong side of the glass have all been suggested as cures. But what causes hiccups in the first place?

When you eat very hot food, it may irritate a passage inside you, or you may have a built-up of gas in your stomach, which presses against the diaphragm. The diaphragam is an organ which separates your chest from your stomach. It tightens up and pulls air into the lungs. But because it has tightened up, the air can’t get through all the way to the lungs, and it is stopped short by the diaphragm. We feel a dump when this happens, and describe the dumping feeling as hiccuping. So hiccups are a way of telling us that body is trying to get rid of the hot food or gas in the stomach.