Why do we get hiccups?

Under your lungs is a big flat muscle called the diaphragm. It moves down when you breathe in and up when you breathe out.

Sometimes it gets irritated — by eating too fast, drinking something fizzy, or laughing hard — and it jerks suddenly. Air rushes into your throat, and a flap at the top of your windpipe snaps shut. That snap is the ‘hic’ sound.

Hiccups usually stop by themselves in a few minutes. Holding your breath or sipping water slowly can help, because it calms the diaphragm.

Nobody is sure why we have hiccups at all. One idea is that they are left over from our tadpole-like ancestors, who used a similar movement to breathe with gills.