If you feel unwell after eating something that doesn’t agree with you, making yourself vomit may be simpler than putting up with the nausea you feel. However, you need to take care when you throw up, as you could cause yourself discomfort and pain. It can even permanently damage your esophagus through the scratching and burning brought on by vomiting. Regular vomiting can erode your tooth enamel and burn your esophagus due to the strong acids from the stomach. Thus, inducing vomiting should never be used as a way to lose weight.

How to Induce Vomiting

1. Use Fingers

After sticking out your tongue, place your index and middle fingers at the back of your mouth so they touch the uvula, the flap that hangs down at the rear wall of your throat. It may be a few seconds before you start to retch. When this happens, take your fingers out of your mouth, so the vomit can pass freely. However, using your fingers will not make you throw up if you have no gag reflex.

2. Use a Toothbrush

An alternative to using your fingers for vomiting is to use a toothbrush. You use this in exactly the same way as you would use your fingers, utilizing the gag reflex. To prevent scratches, make sure your wet the bristles first. Next, rub the toothbrush against the back of your mouth until you gag. When you’re finished, ensure you clean the toothbrush thoroughly.

3. Watch Someone Else Throw Up

When we see somebody else doing an activity, this can induce a physical response in our own bodies, a trick you can use to help you be sick. Although you may find it tricky to find someone else vomiting in real life, we now have the internet at our disposal, so you can easily watch a video of somebody throwing up when you feel nauseous. This can cause what is known by doctors as sympathy vomiting, which is one of the quickest natural ways to make yourself sick.

4. Spin Around

Spinning yourself around is another useful and effective method for making yourself sick. Stand up or sit in a spinning chair. Start rotating and go quicker and quicker until you get a giddy feeling, which if strong enough, will induce vomiting.

5. Drink Salt Water

For centuries, people have wondered how to induce vomiting, and have found salt water (sodium chloride solution) to be very effective. This is due to the effects excess sodium chloride has on the stomach. Drinking salty water is a useful technique if you are unable to retch after sticking your fingers in your throat. However, you have to be very careful with how much salt water you drink, as too much can be very harmful to your body.

6. Take Emetics

For a safer way of making yourself sick, you can take special emetic drugs, such as ipecac, available as a tablet or syrup. Simply add the ipecac to water and drink this mixture to promote vomiting. The drug induces strong stomach wall contractions, which force the contents of your stomach back up through your esophagus. You may initially experience some discomfort, before you feel nauseous a few moments later.

7. Try Castor Oil

How to induce vomiting? Castor oil is extracted from “castor bean” seeds, so-called because they look like beans. The seeds come from the Ricinus communis plant, common to most areas of the world, so they are readily available. To make castor oil, castor bean seeds are cold-pressed after removing the hulls. Castor oil is used as an ingredient in inks, dyes, plastics, textiles, cosmetics, paints, soaps, and many other products. However, few people know that it is an effective natural emetic. It is also a powerful laxative, so only take small amounts to prevent dehydration. A tablespoon is usually sufficient.

8. Use Mustard

Mustard on its own is very unappetizing, which makes eating it a great way to make yourself sick. Simply add a tablespoon of mustard spread to a cup of warm water for a strong emetic. Drink the mixture quickly; you may find this difficult, so try holding your breath or pinching your nose as you do it. You may not feel the emetic effects straight away; the mustard may take up to half an hour to make you vomit. Another thing to note is that this treatment is only effective for some people, so you may find another of the above methods works better for how to induce vomiting.

Risks of Inducing Vomiting

Aspiration: When you vomit, some of the fluid may travel into your airways, leading to chocking. If the vomit gets into the lungs, you may get aspiration pneumonia.

Burning: Vomit contains corrosive chemicals – usually acidic, but sometimes alkaline – that can lead to serious burns in your mouth, throat, and esophagus.

Esophageal tear: Violently throwing up can result in the esophagus becoming either partially or completely torn – these conditions are known as Mallory-Weiss and Boerhaave syndromes respectively. Patients frequently experience intense pain in the upper abdomen or lower chest, and may vomit blood. These diseases are often seen in patients suffering from bulimia and chronic alcohol dependence.

Choking: If someone has fallen unconscious, don’t make them vomit, as this will make them immediately start to choke.