I get hiccups that last for 20 minutes. The painful kind, where your diaphragm spasms hard enough that your whole upper body jerks. I have tried holding my breath, drinking water upside down, getting someone to scare me — none of it worked consistently until I found a method based on the actual physiology of what causes hiccups.

What hiccups actually are

A hiccup is an involuntary spasm of your diaphragm — the dome-shaped muscle under your lungs that controls breathing. The spasm makes you inhale suddenly, and your vocal cords snap shut, creating the “hic” sound. Almost anything that irritates the diaphragm or the nerves that control it can trigger hiccups: eating too fast, carbonated drinks, sudden temperature changes in your stomach, stress, excitement.

The method that actually stops them

It is called the supra-supramaximal inspiration technique. The name sounds ridiculous but it works more reliably than anything else I have tried. Here is how to do it:

1. Sit up straight or stand.
2. Take a deep breath in — as deep as you can.
3. Hold it for five seconds.
4. Without exhaling, try to inhale a little more. You will not be able to take in much, but the attempt is what matters. It stretches your diaphragm and interrupts the spasm cycle.
5. Hold for another five seconds.
6. Try one more tiny inhale. Hold five more seconds.
7. Exhale slowly.

This works because you are overloading the diaphragm’s stretch receptors, which resets the nerve signals causing the spasms. It is the same principle as holding your breath, but the extra “sip of air” steps make it more effective.

Other methods that have some science behind them

• Swallow a teaspoon of granulated sugar. The gritty texture stimulates the vagus nerve, which runs from your brain to your abdomen and is involved in the hiccup reflex. Dry sugar works better than dissolved.
• Bite into a lemon wedge. The sudden sour shock can interrupt the spasm cycle. It is also very unpleasant, so use this as a backup.
• Pull your knees to your chest. This compresses the diaphragm and can stop mild hiccups. Works best if you can lie down while doing it.

If your hiccups last more than 48 hours, see a doctor. Persistent hiccups can signal underlying issues. But for the normal kind that happen after eating too much pizza too fast, the breathing technique above stops mine within one cycle most of the time.