Health and Disease: Heartburn

The chances are just about everyone suffers at some time from heartburn or indigestion during the night. This may be because they ate late night snacks, or perhaps had a lot of spicy food that day. Night time heartburn is not only very uncomfortable; it also means that you will not be able to sleep properly either. Below is some information about this annoying and distressing problem and some useful and simple ideas for things you can do to ease it and thus be able to sleep through the night.

If you are suffering symptoms of indigestion, then, perhaps surprisingly, it can help to ease the discomfort if you just stand up. Your system is then able to expel any excess gas which has led to the indigestion and discomfort.

If you have tried standing up and found that it has not helped, then the next thing you could try is to drink an eight ounce glass of cold water with a teaspoonful of baking soda stirred into it. The baking soda helps to reduce the acids or gas in your stomach which may be the cause of the problem, and this should help you to feel better. However, pregnant women and people who have high blood pressure should not take the baking soda with their water, because it can cause high blood pressure itself, as well as reducing excess water retention. The water by itself may be enough to help, but will not do so to the same extent as the water with baking soda in it.

Another possible remedy is to drink some vinegar, because the cause of heartburn can be lack of acid in the stomach, as well as having too much acid there, a fact which not many people are aware of. So, just a teaspoonful of vinegar can also be a good way of reducing the discomfort of heartburn.

Heartburn is a very unpleasant feeling, so even better than easing the discomfort would be preventing it from occurring in the first place, if you can. Below are some ideas for natural ways in which you can do this.

One good piece of advice is not to have anything to eat within the two hours before you go to bed at night. This gives your stomach plenty of time to digest the food it has in it, and therefore it doesn't have to do this process whilst you are asleep.

It is also a good idea to sleep on your left side, which helps the stomach acid to stay in the correct place in your body.

Lastly, try eating at least one banana daily, which is a good way to prevent heartburn or indigestion during the night.