7 Steps to Mindfully Manage Acid Reflux & Heartburn

7 Steps to Mindfully Manage Acid Reflux & Heartburn

It’s a familiar situation: you’ve been dashing round all day grabbing food on the go when suddenly, heartburn starts. Ouch.

Heartburn (also called acid reflux) is caused by stomach acid escaping up into the oesophagus (the tube that runs from your throat to your stomach).  Normally, a ring of muscle called the Lower Oesophageal Sphincter (LOS) tightens up to keep food and acid safely in the stomach.  However, certain factors can affect this ring of muscle, stopping it from closing properly and allowing some acid back up into the tube.

The oesophagus isn’t equipped to deal with this acid and it goes into spasms.  Sometimes the spasms and pain are so bad they are mistaken for a heart attack.  Other symptoms include a sour taste in the mouth, a sickly burning sensation at the back of the throat, bloating, nausea, and a sudden increase in saliva.

Having an occasional bout of reflux ( eg once every few months) isn’t too concerning as the trigger is usually easy to identify and resolve.  Eating a large celebratory meal with a few drinks for example, or indulging in some unusual foods on holiday.  But if you’re experiencing reflux more than twice a week, it’s possible you could have GORD – GastroOesophageal Reflux Disease.

 

What causes heartburn & reflux?

Several factors make heartburn and reflux more likely to occur.  Pregnancy, for example, and being overweight.  Both these conditions increase pressure on the LOS, making it easier for small amounts of acid to escape back into the oesophagus.

Caffeine, chocolate, mint, peppermint, and alcohol can reduce the tone of the LOS, preventing it from closing properly.  That’s all kinds of alcohol by the way.  I’ve often been asked if there’s a special type of wine or woman clutching stomach, heartburnparticular beer that doesn’t relax the LOS, but sorry, the answer is no!  Other foods can worsen the irritation caused by reflux: this group includes spicy foods and citrus fruits, which is why curries and orange juice are often a problem.

An important thing to note here is that none of these factors causes excessive amounts of stomach acid to be produced.  It’s rare to have too much stomach acid.  In fact, most people with reflux and heartburn have too little, and that’s another part of the problem…

 

Stress & Digestion

Aside from foods, the biggest single trigger for heartburn and reflux is stress.

Stress disrupts your entire digestive process from start to finish.  Imagine your digestion is like a factory production line.  Each part of the line can only do its job if the part before it is working properly.  So, if the very first part of digestion isn’t up to scratch, the stomach will suffer.

The very first part of digestion isn’t chewing or swallowing food, it’s SEEING and SMELLING the food.  Even HEARING it being cooked (sizzling pancakes anyone?).  This stage is called the Cephalic stage after the Greek word ‘kephos’ meaning head.  It’s all about the senses of smell, sight, and sound.

When we use these senses, we trigger nerve impulses that go down the vagus nerve into the digestive system.  These impulses tell the stomach to get ready for the arrival of food, to get busy producing gastric juices!  If we skip this stage as is the case when eating on the go, food arrives in the stomach with no warning and the stomach struggles to deal with it.

Eating on the go usually goes hand-in-hand with feeling busy and stressed.  The problem is, our fight-or-flight stress response runs in direct opposition to our rest-digest-heal response.  We cannot do both things at the same time: we cannot digest food comfortably whilst being stressed.

This is what happens;

acid reflux and heartburn diagram

How to manage heartburn & reflux mindfully and naturally

Now you know what might be causing the problem, let’s look at simple ways to deal with it.

1. Make time for eating
As we’ve just discussed, eating on the go is a big trigger for heartburn and reflux so the most important step is to make time to eat.  This can be 10 minutes, so long as that’s 10 minutes with no phone, emails, or TV.  Just you and your food.

2. Take 3 slow deep breaths before eating
Deep breathing instantly down regulates the stress response and switches your nervous system into rest-and-digest mode.  Look at your food whilst taking these deep slow breaths, enjoy the smell and sight of your meal.  Engage these important cephalic senses!

3. Chew!
It’s amazing how many people simply hoover up food.  Like some kind of alien with a suction tube rather than a human with a mouthful of teeth.
Chewing stimulates even more of those important nerve signals, and also helps us to know when we’re full.  If you think you’re over-eating, try chewing more to reignite your satiety signals.  women eating relaxed happy mindful eating

4. Avoid foods that relax the LOS
Alcohol, mint, peppermint, caffeine and chocolate.  I know there’s a lot of ‘treat’ foods in there, but think about how much better you will feel.

5. Enjoy a small bowl of bitter salad leaves before your main meal
Bitter foods like rocket, watercress, mustard leaves, dandelion leaves, mizuna, apple cider vinegar and lemon juice stimulate the gastric juices.  Use the lemon juice and apple cider vinegar in a simple dressing with olive oil and black pepper for a delicious green salad starter.
*Please do not do this if you already have an active stomach ulcer or gastritis or are taking H2 blockers or PPI medications*

6. Eat larger meals earlier in the day
The speed at which your stomach empties is partly controlled by diurnal rhythms.  It empties slightly faster in the morning than in the evening.  You’re also more likely to be upright and moving round during the day: lying down after an evening meal makes it easier for acid to flow back up into the oesophagus.
Experiment with having a smaller evening meal, and eat more at breakfast and lunch instead to see if this eases your symptoms.

7. Enjoy an overnight fast
Fasting is the only way for your digestive system to have a rest and do some ‘housekeeping’.   Does that sound weird?  Well, the billions of bacteria in your gut have a lot of maintenance work to do, keeping your gut lining healthy.  The easiest way to give them chance to do this, and for your stomach to have a rest, is to fast overnight for 12 hours.  So, if you finish your evening meal at 7.30pm, don’t eat again until 7.30am the following morning.  Herbal teas and water are okay, just no food.

Which steps can you take?
Have you found your own natural way of managing heartburn & reflux?
Do share in the comments below or pop over and join the Facebook Group!

How To Eat Mindfully – #1 Small Step

BlogHead_Mindful Eating

What do indigestion, bloating, excess wind, heartburn, and weight gain all have in common?

They can all be caused by not chewing food properly!

It’s a simple thing to do, but chewing so often gets neglected in favour of eating quickly due to short lunch breaks, or multitasking with food and a laptop.

Retraining yourself to chew food thoroughly is a vital first step to digestive wellbeing and healthy weight balance. 

Let’s look at why…

 

  • The action of chewing tells your brain to send messages to your stomach alerting it to the fact that food is on its way. These nerve signals tell the stomach to start producing the gastric juices that break food down.

  • Chewing mixes food with saliva and salivary amylase, an important digestive enzyme that begins the breakdown of carbohydrates. This is why food taste sweeter the longer you chew it: amylase is busy breaking down carbohydrates into simpler sugars.

  • Your stomach does not have teeth! If food isn’t chewed in your mouth, it won’t get broken down properly anywhere else.  So, you can be eating the perfect diet and still be nutrient deficient, simply because your body can’t access the vitamins and minerals bound up in the food.

  • Chewing properly means you eat slower. Remember at school there was always one child who took ages to eat dinner?  That was me!  Sitting there chewing away whilst my friends were itching to get outside and play!  But eating slowly is no bad thing.  It allows you to tune into satiety signals, and realise exactly when you have eaten enough rather than ploughing on and finishing your plateful regardless of how you feel or how big the portions were.

Taking the time to chew food is part of the overall practice of eating mindfully. By eating in a calm relaxed manner, savouring each mouthful, you begin to appreciate each food and flavour and receive those all-important hunger and satiety signals.

Food choices

Try these 5 basic steps to eating mindfully;

  1. As you sit down to eat, take 5 slow deep breaths. This relaxes your nervous system, preparing you to ‘rest and digest’ (parasympathetic dominance), rather than trying to eat whilst in the stressed out ‘fight or flight’ response (sympathetic dominance).  When stressed, the body down regulates digestive functions producing less stomach acid and digestive enzymes – pretty much guaranteeing that you’ll end up with indigestion and bloating!

  2. Chew. Exactly how many times you chew each mouthful will depend on what you’re eating: yoghurt needs less chewing than steak for example.  And yes, you do need to chew yoghurt and other soft foods like smoothies and mashed potato – otherwise, how will your stomach know that it’s on its way?  If it helps, put your knife and fork down whilst you chew, and don’t prepare the next mouthful until you’ve swallowed what you’re chewing.

  3. Savour the flavours. Really appreciate how each food tastes and feels in your mouth.

  4. Once you’ve finished eating, sit still for 3-5mins to allow food to pass comfortably down to your stomach.

  5. Wait for at least 10mins before deciding whether you want dessert or not. It takes roughly 15-20mins from the start of eating for your brain to register the actions of satiety hormones like leptin.  These hormones work in a complex way, registering how stretched your stomach is, and how much fat you have stored in your body overall.  They tell your brain when you are full, but if this message is ignored you eventually become resistant to their signals.

Eating mindfully does involve changing habits, and this can take time.  It’s not always easy to do, especially if you’re juggling your own meal with feeding a couple of cranky toddlers!  It really is worth persisting though, as no amount of supplements or nutrition guidelines can replace the benefits of good chewing.

If you’d like the benefits of mindfulness to spread beyond the kitchen table, and support other areas of your life, say hello to Joanne Bull at CalmWorks.  Joe offers a Mindfulness_sniprange of mindfulness training options designed to build your inner calm and resilience to ongoing stress.

 

You may also enjoy;

   #1 Small Step – 7 Energy Boosting Breakfasts

   #1 Small Step – Plan Your Way to Nutrition Success

Need nutritional support for dealing with ongoing stress?  See HERE for options of how we can work together.