Science says: why you get the hiccups after drinking alcohol

I'm always a little bit afraid of December: so many drinks, parties, and dinners. I already get a hangover just thinking about it.

Those glasses of red wine that fly by... Of course, I do it myself, but it also feels like a small end-of-year obligation. I can hardly – when people have been cooking in the kitchen for four hours with a carefully chosen wine arrangement – stammer: ‘Uh, just a splash’. It just doesn't work. Then I think I need to find new friends in 2020. And a new man.

Anyway. That drinking and clinking is super fun – but alcohol does a lot to your body. Not only in terms of a headache the day after, but do you know that feeling when you start to get a little tipsy and suddenly you get the hiccups terribly? There’s a clear reason for it, according to doctors. Alcohol causes reflux. A what? Reflux is the process where stomach acid comes up into the esophagus and causes irritation there. And that irritation manifests as a hiccup. Doesn't sound very nice. It's a contraction of the diaphragm. And actually quite bizarre: you don't really think about this when you take a sip of champagne. You only think about that heavy head a day later.

Still, champagne is actually better to leave alone. Beer, champagne, or other carbonated alcoholic drinks make you hiccup faster than, for example, wine. Drinks with bubbles contain extra air, and when you drink that, it triggers hiccups. Doctors even recommend wine – to people who suffer extremely from hiccups. So I still get away with those glasses of red, ha. And well, usually it goes away on its own, so the hiccups are quite harmless. Only if you have them for more than 48 hours, you should go to the hospital. 48 hours... You must drink a whole lot of champagne for that, I think.

But secretly I'm still happy when it’s just plain, boring, and proper January again. The month of the good water.