A short while ago I went to stay with some friends. When I was leaving, the hostess got a bad case of hiccups. “Look into my eyes for one minute and don’t blink,” I told her. “Thank you,” I said once the minute had passed. The hiccups had vanished.
“The Frozen Hiccup” illustrates another effective method of curing hiccups. The voluntary suppression of the blinking reflex acts as a kinaesthetic/figurative instruction to the subconscious to suppress the hiccupping reflex in the same way, with simultaneous distraction effects and the induction of a trance as an essentially symptom-free state. The trance is induced through eye fixation and cataleptic rigidity, and through overburdening with a challenging task. The intervention can also be used auto-suggestively as an exercise in front of the mirror. The intervention is based on one by Gerald Mozdzierz (Mozdzierz,1990).
(From: Stefan Hammel: Handbook of Therapeutic Storytelling. Sories and Metaphors in Psychotherapy, Child and Family Therapy, Medical Treatment, Coaching and Supervision, Routledge 2019)