What My Hiccups Taught Me About Mental Health

One night, as I entered my bathroom to brush my teeth, just as I usually do before going to bed, I got the hiccups. Immediately, my reaction was, "No! I hate hiccups." This reaction probably stemmed from a time a few years ago when I had non-stop hiccups for hours, severely interfering with everything.

There I stood, facing my bathroom mirror, hiccuping every 10 to 30 seconds.

Hiccups are unsettling for me. They seem to appear out of nowhere, surprising you with their unpredictable nature, and it's uncomfortable.

Since my last bout of hiccups, I never figured out how to get rid of them. So, I tried various methods that I thought might help, such as holding my breath, exhaling until I depleted my lungs, and making strange grunting noises. Despite my efforts, the hiccups persisted.

With each hiccup, I felt increasingly agitated. I became frustrated as nothing I tried prevented the next one.

Feeling defeated, I climbed into my bed and leaned against my headboard, wondering how much longer I had to endure them. I began counting the seconds between each hiccup to predict when the next one would strike.

12 seconds. 15 seconds. 13 seconds. As I counted the seconds between hiccups, something strange happened. My feelings of frustration and despair faded, and I began to feel calmer.

The hiccups didn't change; they were still happening. What changed was my reaction to them. Counting the seconds between each hiccup allowed me to notice the space between each hiccup and prevented me from forming any reaction to them. In other words, I was living in the present moment.

That was when I realized that hiccups operate much like many of life's unexpected, unwelcome, and inconvenient stressors. Dealing with them becomes less painful when we let go of our expectations and start to observe what's happening right here, right now.

Suspending our judgments creates space for us to breathe and tap into our inner wisdom. Once we do, the solutions to these stressors often become clearer.

In the case of hiccups, once they sense that you are no longer bothered by them, they quickly and mysteriously subside (eventually).