I drink water backwards, too, and it works EVERY TIME. I’m so glad to have this technique validated by someone else, even if it didn’t work well with the last round of hiccups you had. We can say it’s 99.99% effective, can we not?

Thanks, Derek!

Posted by di on 7 September 2007 @ 8am

Along the same lines as holding your breath… I take large slow controlled breaths. Deep breath in until your chest is tight and then breath out very slowly until there’s no air left to breath out. It takes a minute or two to work but it’s only ever failed me once and it’s easy to do while working on other things :)

Posted by Stephanie on 7 September 2007 @ 9am

Yes! I wanted to try this with out on our 7 month old.. the holding his breath.. but my wife said it might kill him. Maybe the whiskey option is a good one?

Posted by Joshua on 7 September 2007 @ 9am

Blow out all your breath then drink as much of a glass of water as you can. It seems to force the hiccup-y muscles to relax.

Posted by Zazzy on 7 September 2007 @ 1pm

big spoonful of peanut butter. works. every. time.

Posted by elliott on 7 September 2007 @ 1pm

I wait until a hiccup (an hiccup?) is about to burst forth, then slam a large glass of water. It causes me to belch once or twice but so far has to 100% success rate.

Posted by Paul Matheson on 7 September 2007 @ 2pm

My anti-hiccough technique, which never fails, goes as follows:
1. Get a glass of water
2. Take a deep breath and hold for a count of 5.
3. Without breathing out, take 7 sips of water; swallowing each one.
4. Continue to hold your breath for another count of 5 before exhaling and breathing normally.

Et voila: no more hiccoughs.

Posted by Bryan Davis on 7 September 2007 @ 4pm

Drinking water upside down is my Dad’s favored method, and he’ll be shocked to hear that it didn’t work. In fact he’ll probably go into denial and claim that you didn’t do it right.

We had to learn this technique at an early age and it always works.

Posted by Daniel on 8 September 2007 @ 11am

A spoonful of white sugar–works every time. And it tastes good.

Posted by Birdwell on 8 September 2007 @ 12pm

my mother taught me this and it works every time:

get a glass of water and have someone else hold the glass while you drink it. you stand up, arms out to the side like you’re an airplane… someone else is standing there with the glass, holding it to your mouth while you gulp as much as you can.

sort of like your method.

Posted by erin power on 9 September 2007 @ 3am

Take a glass of water and put a paper towel over the top. Drink through the paper towel. Works for me!

Posted by britta on 9 September 2007 @ 10pm

Backwards water drinking for me too. Hasn’t failed me yet.

Posted by pauldwaite on 12 September 2007 @ 6am

I hold my breath (and pinch my nostrils closed) for as long as I can. Also seems to help if I can my ears to pop while doing this … you know, like when you’re ascending or descending on an airplane.

Posted by Jish on 13 September 2007 @ 10am