10 Tips for Nighttime Heartburn Relief

Nighttime heart burn is irritating, painful, and leaves you with the bitter taste from another restless night. This common condition is known in the medical world as gastroesophageal reflux disorder, or GERD. GERD is the generalized effect of heartburn on the body.

When dealing more specifically with nighttime heartburn, nearly 4 out of every 5 GERD suffers deal with nightly heartburn. The heartburn and pain in the stomach disturbs normal sleeping patterns and impairs a person’s ability to function the following day.

Luckily, with GERD there are many things you could try to relieve it. Lifestyle changes, exercise, and food tips all help to limit stomach pain or avoid it altogether.

One of the most successful ways to avoid nighttime heartburn is by changing your diet. GERD diets have been around for awhile and have helped many sufferers. The foods you eat can help you to extinguish heartburn or light the internal flames which are likely to burn all night long.

Here is a useful list of the top ten tips for avoiding serious nighttime heartburn. and hopefully avoid that raging stomach pain all together.

1. Limit acidic foods like grapefruit, oranges, tomatoes, or vinegar.

2. Cut back on spicy foods like peppers or chilis.

3. Stay upright for two to three hours after your eat. That’s just gravity. Food and stomach acid have a less likely chance of backing up if it is a straight shot to digestion.

4. Steer clear of greasy foods like pizza, cheeseburgers, or french fries. Instead, look for lean meats and non-fat foods.

5. Reduce your intake of chocolate, mint, citrus, tomatoes, pepper, vinegar, ketchup, and mustard.

6. Lower your consumption of drinks like alcohol, caffinated, or carbonated beverages.

7. Try eating smaller meals. Small meals makes it easier to digest food.

8. It’s meal time, but slow down! Eating too quickly can overwhelm the stomach and produce too much acid; a real pain in the middle of the night.

9. Avoid midnight snacks. Try ending all meals two to three hours before you go to sleep. If you have trouble with this, brush your teeth right after your last meal. This will make it easier to resist eating again until morning.

10. Take a dose of an acid reliever. Some of them work immediately so taking it while you have heartburn may not mean that all hope is lost for a good night’s rest.

All in all, heartburn doesn’t have to control your life… or your stomach. By restricting the kinds of foods you eat, and staying away from the ones which cause you trouble is the first step to relief. After some trial and error, you will begin to realize exactly what foods irritate your stomach more. Not all the listed foods above will give you heartburn; everyone’s body is different. Nighttime heartburn should not be something that you have to life with. There is relief and it comes before you ever even go to sleep.

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