WHAT EXACTLY ARE HICCUPS?? *BEST ANSWER*

What causes them?

What exactly is going on in your body when you have them?

Why do they go away when you hold your breath?

Hiccups are caused by your diaphragm having several spasms. It can be caused when you eat to much or fast, or breathing too quickly. They go away when you hold your breath because you aren't breathing, which is the purpose of your diaphragm; to move your lungs and allow you to breath. It is still, so it doesn't spasm, thus, you don't hiccup.

A hiccup or hiccough (pronounced /hɪˈkʊp/ hik-UUP or pronounced /ˈhɪkəp/ hik-əp) is a myoclonus of the diaphragm that repeats several times per minute. In humans, the abrupt rush of air into the lungs causes the vocal cords to close, creating a "hic" sound.
In medicine it is known as synchronous diaphragmatic flutter (SDF), or singultus, from the Latin singult, "the act of catching one's breath while sobbing". The hiccup is an involuntary action involving a reflex arc.
A bout of hiccups, in general, resolves itself without intervention, although many home remedies shorten the duration.[citation needed] Medical treatment is occasionally necessary in cases of chronic hiccups.

Researchers at the Respiratory Research
Group, University of Calgary, Canada,
propose that the hiccup is an evolutionary
remnant of earlier amphibian respiration;
amphibians such as tadpoles gulp air and
water across their gills via a rather simple
motor reflex akin to mammalian hiccuping.
[2] In support of this idea, they observe that
the motor pathways that enable hiccuping
form early during fetal development, before
the motor pathways that enable normal lung
ventilation form. Thus, according to
recapitulation theory (a theory that has lost
much of the support it once had) the hiccup
is evolutionarily antecedent to modern lung
respiration. Additionally, they point out that