FitSugar

What Causes Hiccups?

FitSugar — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 03:30:00 PDT

Everyone and their mother seems to have a unique cure for a bad case of the hiccups, but what I want to know is, what causes them in the first place?

A hiccup is an unintentional contraction of your diaphragm, the muscle that separates your chest from your abdomen. It plays an important role in breathing, and when it contracts, it makes your vocal cords close briefly and that's what causes the sound of a hiccup.

Hiccups are actually triggered by many things:

Eating spicy foods - It can cause irritation to the nerves that control normal contractions of your diaphragm.
Eating a large meal, eating too fast (swallowing air), or drinking carbonated beverages - These can cause your stomach to expand, which pushes up your diaphragm, making hiccups more likely.
Drinking alcohol - Alcohol can relax your diaphragm and vocal cords, making it easier for other factors to trigger hiccups.
Tobacco use - Tobacco use may irritate the nerves that control the diaphragm.

Want to know what else can cause hiccups? Then

Sudden temperature changes - Whether the change occurs inside your body (like drinking hot tea), or outside your body (when you go outside in the snow), it can cause hiccups.
Excitement or emotional stress - It's not clear why this can cause hiccups, but it may have to do with one of the nerves involved in the hiccup reflex being startled.

As annoying as hiccups can be, even if you don't sip water through a straw while pinching your nose, or hold your breath while saying the word "hippopotamus" in your head 5 times, hiccups will eventually go away on their own. Very rarely do hiccups last for more than 20-30 minutes. If they do, like this poor girl who had them for 3 weeks straight, there could be an underlying medical problem such as nerve damage. If this is the case, someone should definitely seek medical attention pronto. Source

Speak Up: What's Your Remedy for Hiccups?

FitSugar — Thu, 24 May 2007 13:30:00 PDT

Hiccups. They can be so annoying, especially if they take a long time to go away like this poor girl who had hiccups for more than 3 weeks.

What causes hiccups? It's actually an involuntary spasm of the diaphragm. The sudden rush of air into your lungs causes the glotis (the space between your vocal cords) to close, which is what makes that "hic" sound.

Well, however they started, Fit wants to know: How do you get rid of your hiccups? Let me know in the comments section below.

Source

Nothing To Sneeze At

GiggleSugar — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 00:02:00 PST

Hiccuping for three weeks straight? Ha. That's for sissies. Try sneezing for two years straight.

How Do You Cure Your Hiccups?

FitSugar — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 04:00:00 PST

When I was young I figured out how to give myself the hiccups, really loud frog like ones, and would do exactly that during sermons at church. My mother would whisper angrily to me to go play outside. I would run to the playground and hang out until I knew it was time to go back in and sit down for the last few minutes.

Recently, during a long car trip, my husband got this exact type of hiccups and nothing would make them go away.

So, I was wondering how do you cure your hiccups?

OnSugar Blog: My Baby's Hiccups!

OnSugar Blog — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 14:45:23 PDT

Lots of moms like to think out loud, and CherylDee is one of them. In the latest post from her From Lipsticks to Baby Bottles blog, she captures her baby's in utero hiccups.

Finally managed to catch my baby's hiccups on camera! It happens so often these day. Almost every night actually. Poor little girl! I wonder, why do babies get hiccups in the womb?

Cure Your Hiccups With a Spoonful of Lemon Juice

Michele Bell — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 14:00:08 PST

You've stood on your head. You've held your breathe and chugged a glass of water. You've even tried hopping up and down with your head tilted to one side. Or maybe a quick jolt of fear is enough to scare them out of you. Whatever it is, people seem to have their surefire remedy for the occasional case of the annoying hiccups. Some swear by a spoonful of sugar, a swallow of vinegar, or a loaded ladle of peanut butter. My go-to is a slice of lemon or a spoonful of lemon juice. It's a trick my dad taught me in childhood, and it works wonders for my babes and yours truly. It actually tastes kind of good and it's low-calorie and fat free unlike the sugary and nutty options.

The next time you're sounding a bit like a drunk mouse, give my citrus trick a go and let us know how it works out for you!

The 10 Most Ridiculous Excuses For Being Late to Work

SavvySugar — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 16:56:01 PST

Ever been late to the office because you were busy watching The Today Show - and admitted it? In CareerBuilder's annual survey, employers shared some of the most outrageous excuses their employees have given for being late to work. According to the results, 16 percent of workers report that they arrive late to work once a week or more, and 27 percent of workers arrive late to work at least once a month. Check out the 10 most unusual excuses for tardiness below.

Employee's cat had the hiccups.
Employee thought she had won the lottery (she didn't).
Employee got distracted watching The Today Show.
Employee's angry roommate cut the cord to his phone charger, so it didn't charge and his alarm didn't go off.

Keep reading for six more ridiculous excuses.

How to Know If You've Hit a Workout Plateau and What to Do About It

Heather Dale — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 03:33:31 PST

Trips to the gym have finally become apart of your weekday routine. You've been feeling great and looking even better up until this point, but for some reason, you're not feeling the burn anymore. Welcome to the workout plateau club! It happens to all of us, usually around the one or two-month mark, when the scale stays at the same number, and your body becomes immune to the stresses of exercise. Fortunately, all it takes is a few simple changes to get past this minor hiccup in your fitness routine. Here are some tips for overcoming a workout plateau.

Bizarre Home Cures That Work

Prevention — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 03:13:50 PDT

We are excited to share one of our fave stories from Prevention here on FitSugar!

Ease pesky health issues with vodka, duct tape — more
From the Editors of Prevention

Of course there are some health staples you should never be without - bandages or OTC pain relievers come to mind. But you can treat or cure a surprising number of minor ailments with these unexpected household objects and foods.

Home cure: Vodka
Use it for: Foot odor
If your feet smell less than swell, wipe them down with a vodka-soaked washcloth to get rid of the stench. It's the same principle as rubbing alcohol (which works equally well if you'd rather drink your Grey Goose). Vodka contains alcohol, which is antiseptic and drying, so it destroys odor-causing fungus and bacteria and dries out the moisture that lets these organisms grow.

Surprising Reasons Why You Smell

Home cure: Licorice
Use it for: Calluses and corns
"Licorice contains estrogen-like substances that soften the hard skin of calluses and corns," says Georgianna Donadio, PhD, director of the National Institute of Whole Health. Make this homemade licorice paste: grind up a few licorice sticks, mix them with 1/2 teaspoon of petroleum jelly, and rub the mixture into the rough areas of your feet.

How to Get Soft and Sexy Feet

Home cure: Baking soda
Use it for: Urinary tract infections
At the first sign of symptoms, drink a solution made with 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda mixed in eight ounces of water. Continue this once a day until you can get a culture done at a doctor's office and start antibiotics. Baking soda makes the bladder environment more alkaline, which reduces bacteria's ability to multiply, says Larrian Gillespie, MD, a retired assistant clinical professor of urology and urogynecology in Los Angeles.

Keep reading for more home cures.

Getting Back on Budget: How to Escape a Downward Spiral

LearnVest — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 00:15:02 PDT

We're thrilled to present this smart LearnVest story here on Savvy!

I recently fell off my budget-or, rather, got pushed off by a large, unexpected expense at the dentist’s office.

I negotiated a payment plan so I wouldn’t have to pay more than $1,000 all in one go, but that night, as I was walking home, I became really irritated about the payments I’d have to make for the next few months.

Then, I saw-and was lured into-one of my favorite New York City institutions, the Strand bookstore, whose memorable tagline is “18 Miles of Books.”

That’s 18 miles of used books. Used books are cheap, right? Cheap.

That’s what I told myself as I proceeded to walk out with $75 worth of new reading material.

As I walked home, I thought, “I’m so far down the hole already anyway, what’s another $75?”

It turns out that this is a common way of thinking-about budgets, diets (“I already gorged on that cake last night, so what’s a little cookie?”), exercise (I already missed two workouts, who cares if I miss a third?) and more. But a few easy tricks-and our easy-to-use, goal-setting calculator below-can lift anyone out of a damaging downward spiral. If you want to jump right in to calculating how you can undo any damage you’ve done, scroll down.

First, let’s figure out why so many of us fall prey to downward spirals in the first place.

Why We Dig Ourselves Deeper in a Hole

Carmen Wong Ulrich, personal finance expert and author of “The Real Cost of Living,” says that once people fall off their budgets, they feel helpless. “You’re beyond the point of seeing yourself getting out. The pit is so big, it’s exhausting to look at, and that exhaustion wears down your ability to make a good decision.”

It’s a sad fact: Once one financial defeat saps our energy and willpower, we tend to make yet another bad decision, which makes us feel even worse, engendering yet another budget-busting decision, and so on. (A lot of it comes down to the psychology of sunk costs.)

So, how do you reverse course?

Read on to find out.