• Question: Why do we get hiccups?

    Asked by Alex to Connor, Jillian, Lidunka, Sarah, Steven on 18 Jun 2015.
    • Photo: Lidunka Vocadlo

      Lidunka Vocadlo answered on 18 Jun 2015:

      @Alex the roundish muscle at the bottom of the chest which regulates breathing is called the diaphragm. When it gets irritated, it behaves in a sporadic way causing you to suck in too much air too quickly. All that air makes your vocal cords close suddenly and the result is a hiccup. What irritates the diaphragm in the first place could be too much food, spicy food or even just excitement.

    • Photo: Jillian Scudder

      Jillian Scudder answered on 19 Jun 2015:

      My favorite theory about why hiccups happen (which I apparently got from QI) is that it’s a kickback to when we were aquatic creatures, and the diaphragm was the muscle used to pull water through gills while keeping the lungs closed. I’m not sure I believe this, but it’s certainly possible that evolution could have left something useless like that in our mental wiring, since it doesn’t do any real harm.

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