How To Stop Hiccups

The title of this post makes me giggle. Really it should be entitled, "How To Stop Hiccuping" or "How To Stop Your Hiccups." Or better yet, "How I Stop My Hiccups," because I have no idea if this will work for anyone else. But the image of a bunch of animate hiccups taking down TSA, or whatever it is that rogue hiccups are wont to do, was too good to delete. Or is it just me that gets amused at all the images in my head? 

I really hate hiccuping, so several years ago I figured out how to stop. When I was on my mission in Romania, I got a hiccup attack and my companion stopped it my demanding that I hiccup for her immediately. After that, I tried to do it without her authoritative presence nearby, and it was harder. But I figured it out, and since then I haven't had a major hiccup attack since. 

Well, that's not totally true. Several months ago, I was at Ikea with a rambunctious preschooler and a hungry crying infant, and I got a major case of the hiccups. I tried to do my little trick, but it didn't work and I hiccuped again and again and again. So finally I sat on a couch, breastfed the baby (in public! The scandal!), told the preschooler to calm down, and did my little trick. And then it worked. So you need to be able to focus, okay?

So here are the steps:

1. Get in a focused, calm frame of mind.

2. Force yourself to want, more than anything, to hiccup--to experience that sensation. Let go of all other thoughts.

3. Try to remember what it feels like to hiccup. Try to pinpoint exactly what parts of your body do the job. 

4. Keep at it, letting all other thoughts slip away.

When I first started doing this, it took a while for the hiccups to go away. But now, like I said, if I'm in a calm, focused frame of mind, I don't hiccup more than once. And a bonus is that when it's over, I'm in a calm, focused frame of mind.

I'm curious if this works for other people, so let me know in the comments!