Causes

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A hiccup is an unintentional contraction of your diaphragm — the muscle that separates your chest from your abdomen and plays an important role in breathing. This contraction makes your vocal cords close very briefly, which produces the sound of a hiccup.

Acute or transient hiccups
Although there's often no clear cause for a bout of hiccups, some factors that can trigger acute or transient hiccups include:

Eating spicy food. Spicy food may cause irritation to the nerves that control normal contractions of your diaphragm.

Eating a large meal, drinking carbonated beverages or swallowing air. These can cause your stomach to expand (distend), 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.

Sudden temperature changes. A quick change in temperature, either inside or outside your body, such as drinking hot liquids and then cold liquids or your shower water switching suddenly from hot to cold, can set off hiccups.

Tobacco use. Tobacco use may irritate the nerves that controls the diaphragm (phrenic nerves), causing hiccups.

Sudden excitement or emotional stress. Although it's not clear why stress or sudden excitement causes hiccups, it may be due to the effect being startled has on one of the nerves involved in the hiccup reflex (vagus nerves).

Persistent and intractable hiccups
Rarely, hiccups may be the result of an underlying medical condition. When this is the case, the hiccups usually last longer than 48 hours. More than 100 causes of persistent and intractable hiccups have been identified. They are generally grouped into the following categories:

Nerve damage or irritation. Damage or irritation of one of your vagus nerves or phrenic nerves is the most common cause of persistent or intractable hiccups.

The vagus nerve serves as a communication pathway between your brain and organs, such as your heart, lungs and intestines. There's one vagus nerve on each side of your body. These nerves run from your brainstem through your neck and down to your chest and abdomen. The phrenic nerve controls movement of your diaphragm. There's one phrenic nerve on each side of your body. The phrenic nerves run from your brainstem through your neck and down to your diaphragm.

Examples of conditions that may damage or irritate these nerves include a foreign body (often a hair) in your ear, a tumor, cyst or goiter in your neck or chest, gastroesophageal reflux, or an abscess on your diaphragm.

Central nervous system disorders. A tumor or infection in your central nervous system, or damage to your central nervous system as a result of trauma, can release your body's normal control of the hiccup reflex.

Metabolic disorders. Metabolic disorders that may cause hiccups include a condition that interferes with the ability of your kidneys to keep wastes from building to toxic levels (uremia) and a condition that results in less than the normal levels of carbon dioxide in your blood (hypocapnia).

Surgery. General anesthesia and complications following surgery can cause intractable hiccups.

Mental or emotional triggers. Anxiety, stress and excitement have been associated with some cases of persistent or intractable hiccups.