Hiccups at night

My body still surprises me. At the age of 53, you’d think I’d know most of its tricks and foibles, but no. Last night, in the middle of the night, it woke me up with hiccups. Not many, just a couple – and then I went back to sleep.

This morning I’ve been wondering why. Resisting a Google search until now, I reckoned it was something to do with re-setting my diaphragm. But why?

Unable to resist any longer, a quick session on Google isn’t reassuring. I was right about the diaphragm bit, but this is what it said:

Hiccuping in your sleep can be caused by any number of things that might irritate your diaphragm. These, according to researchers at the Mayo Clinic, include tumors, goiter, pleurisy, stroke, gastrointestinal reflux disease, multiple sclerosis or brain injuries.

None of this is good, but I decide to ignore it – unless it’s something that happens again and again, in which case I’d better have a word with the doctor.

One’s relationship with one’s body is an interesting one. I’m fairly happy with mine. There are a few disappointments; never having a flat stomach for instance, but by and large, it’s been great. I’m most grateful for the fact that it gets me to where I want to go. When I was younger it took me along the Inca Trail. These days, the demands I make of it aren’t as punishing, but it never lets me down. Some days, on a whim, I expect it to pitch up and walk for hours in the hills, other times I’ll take it to a class at the gym and am thankful that it manages to do what it’s meant to do and not complain too much afterwards. And I love to dance.

A more regular commitment is yoga. I’ve done this for years on and off - and more routinely again, recently. Although I struggle to practice at home on my own, I go to an Iyengar class on Saturday morning. It makes a great start to the weekend and I enjoy the companionship of my fellow participants as well as a dedicated period where my body and mind are in close connection. Sometimes it makes me cry, but in a gentle, releasing sort of way. Although I’m not competitive about it, I regret that I’m no longer as lithe and supple as I once was. but there’s also a sense of letting go as the tears slide quietly down my cheeks; of being grateful for the fact that I can still do what I do and a mellow sense of satisfaction in looking after my physical self.

My son is now fifteen years old, but I think back and am still amazed at the process of pregnancy and birth. The power my body had, to guide me safely through a series of steps to produce a child. I was really humbled by it. The creation of an embryo and foetus is really a miracle, a chain of reactions and tiny readjustments, where so much depends on timing. My body nurtured and expanded to encompass my growing boy and when it came to giving birth, I remember feeling taken over by instincts and reactions over which I had no control. It’s something that millions of women go through everyday, but it’s humbling to think that those of us who are lucky enough to be able to, are born with an innate ability to produce another human being. That nature and our bodies take over any conscious notions we have about the procedure and the rest of what makes us what are is just there for the ride.

Once I did a mindfulness course. It was a useful tool to learn and helped me come to terms with a difficult situation I was in at the time. The other class members were a real mix, but a couple of them were women with breast cancer. We were asked at the start of the course why we’d come – what we’d hope to get out of it. It’s several years ago now, but I remember one woman, younger than me - an academic - who’d said until she’d had cancer, she’d thought of her body, solely, as something that carried her head around. I was really struck by this at the time. It seemed so sad that she hadn’t inhabited and lived through her physical self as thoroughly as she’d obviously done, through her mind.

I’m coming to terms with the fact that as I get older, there’s less I can do, physically – I get tired more easily now, but I am so grateful for my body and see it as an essential, if sometimes puzzling, part of who I am.