Hiccups are natural and no one can ever escape from them as the process involving them is involuntary and many a time irritated vagus nerve is the cause for that. Hiccups are common both in toddlers and infants, but children, men and women, the elderly, the diseased, and, in fact all of us experience them many a time.
There is no exact or perfect medical method to stop them; however, there are many natural methods that are very powerful to stop them from repeating continuously, and the following home remedies are a few among them.
16 Most Effective Home Remedies For Hiccups
Drink Water
The best and the simplest method you can easily follow to stop hiccups is drinking cold water gradually or sipping cold water. Drinking water calms the nerves with the same effect as gargling with cold water.
Suck Ice Cube
When you want immediate relief from your prolonged hiccups, do not feel hesitant to suck ice cubes because it may sometimes look odd to do so, especially when you are an adult. Continue this act of yours until you get relief from persistent hiccups.
Eat Sugar
Stop your hiccups by overloading  sweet sensations of your tongue by placing sugar on your tongue. The nerve ending receives sweet sensations that are important than the unusual hiccups sensations and your brain reacts immediately to them, and this will do the trick to stop hiccups gradually.
Use Honey
Honey has similar effects like that of sugar, but it is more natural with amazing nerve calming properties and many other similar benefits apart from having very good aroma and taste.
Put Fingers In Your Ears
The trick here is to stimulate the vagus nerve ending of the auditory system so that instead of receiving the heightened sensations pertaining to hiccups, the vagus nerve endings receive sensitized and stimulated signals from the auditory signals and thus brain desensitizes the hiccups signals of the vagus nerve, that in turn stops the hiccups.
Control Your Breath
Consciously breath in by taking as much air as possible until you reach to a point where you can no more inhale further. Then, hold your breath for a few seconds until you feel you are running out of oxygen, and then release air slowly. Repeat this three to four times.
Hold Your Breath
This breath control method is simple. Here, you just have to hold your breath as usual for a few seconds until you reach to a point to exhale, and then exhale slowly.
Breath In And Out Slowly
This method is similar to the one above, but here you have to consciously breath in and out slowly by deep inhaling and slowly exhaling without holding your breath in between.
Breath Into A Paper Bag
The next important trick you can follow is breathing into a paper bag. While breathing ensures that you cover your entire mouth and nostril with the bag making it airtight and do not allow any air to escape out of it.
This trick of increasing carbon dioxide concentration and suffocating your lungs without providing oxygen can be extended maximum up to a minute, but not more than that considering the sensitivity of your lungs for oxygen. This is the most tested trick because when your lungs get full of carbon dioxide, they want to get rid of it as early as possible and thus brain signals shifts and your hiccup stops.
Use Hot Sauce
Place some hot sauce on the tongue and then gradually sip the sauce. The hot and chili sauce distracts the concentration of the person from the hiccup and inflames the hot senses more and thus causes the hiccup senses from the brain to stop.
Frightening Method
Surprise the person experiencing hiccups with some sudden frightening tricks like disguising as ghosts and suddenly appearing from nowhere when the person is busy with some other work. This sudden frightening incident may help divert the sensory signals of the brain towards more flight and fight kind of reaction rather than towards hiccups.
Pull On Your TongueÂ
The best you can do to control and stop hiccups when you find it rather difficult to resort to any other alternative methods immediately is by doing this: pull hard on your tongue by opening the mouth and by yanking it.
Tickle The Palate
Tickling the palate seems very effective as long as it is done with a purpose and heightened sensitivity by using cotton swab. This can also be done by placing your thumb on the palate and gently pressing it in case you don’t have cotton swab ready with you. Similarly, ask someone to tickle your most sensitive tickling spots, and this will definitely do the trick for you.
Smell
Smell any good aroma that is slightly natural and aromatic like that of any spice or any good natural aroma: smelling flower, smelling salt, natural perfumes, etc.
Food
Overloading the stomach and eating spicy food and eating faster are some of the main reasons for hiccups, according to experts. Therefore, next time when you eat ensure that you eat slower, make space for water and air in your stomach and limit spices in your foods.
Lifestyle
Alternative medicine addresses hiccups at their grass roots levels and therefore considers every lifestyle aspect very seriously for addressing hiccups. Lifestyle plays very important role not only in this case, but also in many other diseases and conditions. Therefore, the first principle is to adopt emotional well-being, that is, to avoid anger, frustration, anxiety and irritability in general and during eating and before eating in particular.
Perform yoga daily, especially pranayama, snake pose or peacock pose early in the morning and keep your liver healthy. To keep your liver healthy, avoid eating cabbages and cauliflower and incorporate green leafy vegetables, carrot, cherries, strawberries, plum and cashew nuts in your daily diet plan.
When To See A Doctor
You simply can’t ignore hiccups as considering them involuntary and natural if they continuously persist for more than three to four hours, that too with extreme severity, which is troubling you to eat, sleep and breath. Next, if you feel pain, breathing problem, stomach pain, and it is getting worst with other symptoms like fever, sore throat along with coughing, then immediately consult a healthcare provider to rule out any other medical condition.
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Caution: Please use Remedies after Proper Research and Guidance. You accept that you are following any advice at your own risk and will properly research or consult healthcare professional.
