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A cough is your body's way of responding when something irritates your throat or airways. An irritant stimulates nerves that send a message to your brain. The brain then tells muscles in your chest and abdomen to push air out of your lungs to force out the irritant.An occasional cough is normal and healthy. A cough that persists for several weeks or one that brings up discolored or bloody mucus may indicate a condition that needs medical attention.At times, coughing can be very forceful. Prolonged, vigorous coughing can irritate the lungs and cause even more coughing. It is also exhausting and can cause sleeplessness, dizziness or fainting, headaches, urinary incontinence, vomiting, and even broken ribs.Coughing is a common reflex action that clears your throat of mucus or foreign irritants. While everyone coughs to clear their throat from time to time, a number of conditions can cause more frequent coughing.A cough that lasts for less than three weeks is an acute cough. Most episodes of coughing will clear up or at least significantly improve within two weeks.If your cough lasts between three and eight weeks, improving by the end of that period, it’s considered a subacute cough. A persistent cough that lasts more than eight weeks is a chronic cough.