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Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works pay brain Stuff.

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Speaker 1: I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and today's question is how do we

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Speaker 1: get hiccups? Science isn't sure, actually, but it's not that

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Speaker 1: medical science has been ignoring hiccups. When these spasms are

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Speaker 1: frequent or persistent in adults, they can indicate over a

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Speaker 1: hundred different diseases and disorders, from multiple sclerosis to cancer

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Speaker 1: to appendicitis, and hiccups themselves can get serious and what's

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Speaker 1: called intractable cases. Hiccups don't stop for more than a

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Speaker 1: month and can go on for years without relief, leading

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Speaker 1: to complications like irregular heartbeat, weight loss, insomnia, and emotional distress. Understandably,

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Speaker 1: but okay, science isn't totally ignorant here. We know the basics.

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Speaker 1: Hiccups are reflexive spasms of the diaphragm and glottis and

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Speaker 1: more on both of those in a second caused by

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Speaker 1: irritation to any of several nerves throughout your body. During

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Speaker 1: normal non hiccuppy breathing, you move air into and out

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Speaker 1: of your lungs, partially thanks to contractions of your diaphragm.

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Speaker 1: It contracts pulling downward as you inhale, giving your lungs

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Speaker 1: room to expand, then releases, relaxing upward and letting your

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Speaker 1: lungs contract as you exhale, and all that air moves

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Speaker 1: through your throat and importantly through your glottis, which is

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Speaker 1: the opening between your vocal cords. But during a hiccup,

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Speaker 1: at least half of your diaphragm, for some reason, contracts

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Speaker 1: sharply about eighty percent of the time. It's just the

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Speaker 1: left half. Go figure that contraction starts pulling in a

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Speaker 1: deep breath, but that breath gets cut short by the

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Speaker 1: glottis snapping shut about three hundreds of a second later.

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Speaker 1: The hick sound comes from that sudden closure. In most cases,

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Speaker 1: hiccups are caused by irritation of the frenic nerves, which

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Speaker 1: control the motion of the diaphragm and send your brain

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Speaker 1: sensory information about what's going on in various parts of

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Speaker 1: your neck and body. That irritation is usually from your

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Speaker 1: stomach distending when you accidentally swallow air, or when you

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Speaker 1: eat or drink too much too fast, especially carbonated beverages

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Speaker 1: like soda or beer. In rarer cases, lots of other

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Speaker 1: irritations can be at fault more serious than having over

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Speaker 1: drank soda or beer, such as infections of or trauma

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Speaker 1: to anything that the fhrenic nerves touch, like a tumor

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Speaker 1: pressing against them in your neck, or pericarditis, which is

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Speaker 1: the swelling of the membrane around your heart. Irritations of

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Speaker 1: the vagus nerve can also be hiccup culprits, possibly due

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Speaker 1: to its connection to the larynx, along with everything from

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Speaker 1: your small intestine to the inside of your ear, and

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Speaker 1: lots of stuff in between. If you're looking to get

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Speaker 1: rid of hiccups, some of the most common home remedies

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Speaker 1: really are worthwhile. They work by either overloading the frenic

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Speaker 1: or vagus nerves or by interrupting your involuntary breathing cycle.

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Speaker 1: For nerve overload, try biting into a lemon, placing a

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Speaker 1: spoonful of sugar on the back of your tongue, pulling

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Speaker 1: on your tongue, or having a friend tickle or scare

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Speaker 1: you on the respiratory and try holding your breath, gulping

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Speaker 1: down a glass of water, or breathing into a paper bag.

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Speaker 1: And if nothing works, hiccups generally go away on their own.

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Speaker 1: If they do stick around, for more than forty eight

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Speaker 1: hours see a doctor just in case. The purpose behind

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Speaker 1: this reflex is still a mystery. Some researchers say that

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Speaker 1: they could be vestigial spasms related to how our amphibian

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Speaker 1: ancestors controlled their gills. Others postulate that they help with breastfeeding.

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Speaker 1: Hiccups can release small amounts of air from the stomach

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Speaker 1: into the esophagus, where it can be exhaled, so hiccups

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Speaker 1: might serve to get air out of baby stomachs, making

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Speaker 1: more space for milk. Today's episode was written by me

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Speaker 1: and produced by Tyler Clay. To find brain stuff gear,

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Speaker 1: check out our online shop at t public dot com

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Speaker 1: slash brain stuff, and of course, for more on this

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Speaker 1: and lots of other topics about our weird bodies, visit

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Speaker 1: our home planet, how stuff works dot com