For a long time I've been able to stop a bout of hiccups by focusing my eyes on something. My mentor taught me that a 'staring contest' causes hiccups to stop, through experimentation I found that I could stop them by focusing my eyes.
Only tonight that didn't work. Had about ten minutes of hiccuping (probably a record since I learned my trick) and nothing worked until I watched embed related.
What are the mechanics of hiccups, why did my tricks work before, and why didn't they work today?