Callum Jones
We've all been there, haven't we? Whether that be because we ate our dinner far too quickly, or downed a pint at the local pub, hiccups are certainly a pain in the backside.
Particularly when you are with a group of people, having the hiccups can be rather embarrassing.
That is because they are very difficult to get rid of. Of course, we've heard of the old wives tales of how you need to make someone who has hiccups jump, but how many times can you actually recall that working?
Well, those who don't seem to have much success with that are in luck, with one study finding a '100 per cent cure rate' for hiccups.
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To be honest, the method is fairly simple and involves just four steps.
Step 1: breathe completely out, emptying your lungs
Step 2: take a deep breath in and hold it a few seconds
Step 3: without letting any air out, breathe in a little more air, then hold for a few seconds.
Step 4: well, this sees a repeat of step three.
For such a long time, there has been collective knowledge on the subject of hiccups, that is, until Ali Seifi arrived on the scene.
Known as an inventor and entrepreneur, Seifi is perhaps the most knowledgeable individual on the planet when it comes to hiccups.
"They can have different frequencies, but 10 times per minute is most common," he said in a previous study.
"I don’t know how God created that, but most of the time they’re equally spaced."
Now we know how to get rid of hiccups, why do we hiccup in the first place?
There are a few ideas out there, but one weird idea is that hiccups have their origins in our evolutionary history. And we're not talking 'Missing Link' evolution, or even when we looked like a cross between a monkey and a lemur.
However, we're talking way before that, to the point where creatures started crawling out of the oceans onto dry land.
The 'hic' that we hear is our windpipe closing up to prevent anything from falling down it and into our lungs.
It's been speculated over the years that the reflex evolved to allow animals with both gills and lungs to push water over their gills without any of it getting into their lungs.
Robb Dunn said: "The first air-breathing fish and amphibians extracted oxygen using gills when in the water and primitive lungs when on land and to do so, they had to be able to close the glottis, or entryway to the lungs, when underwater.
"Importantly, the entryway (or glottis) to the lungs could be closed. When underwater, the animals pushed water past their gills while simultaneously pushing the glottis down.
"We descendants of these animals were left with vestiges of their history, including the hiccup. In hiccupping, we use ancient muscles to quickly close the glottis while sucking in (albeit air, not water)."