Everyone can occasionally suffer from acid reflux. It is not a very serious problem until it becomes chronic. Acid Reflux is an uncomfortable burning sensation between the stomach and the neck generally beneath the breastbone.
In most cases, you can treat acid reflux at home.
Acid reflux is experienced when some of the stomach contents slip back up through the valve (esophageal sphincter) that is supposed to prevent the stomach's contents from reversing course. Most natural acid reflux home remedies, therefore, are based on food.
Food plays a very important role both as a cause and as a remedy for acid reflux. Therefore, it becomes important to identify the foods that cause acid reflux and avoid them. At the same time identify the foods that don’t cause acid reflux or heartburn, and make them part of your daily diet.
1. Acid Reflux Relief through Diet – Foods to Eat
Following a diet for acid reflux will help to reduce heartburn.
- Chew 3-4 almonds well Whenever acid reflux symptoms are felt. Make sure that you are not swallowing air. This is one of the easier acid reflux home remedies to relieve symptoms.
- Eat a cup of cooked brown rice and feel the difference immediately. Eat slowly by chewing it properly and enjoying it. Brown rice which is a complex carbohydrate is very good to get rid of acid reflux.
- Drink lots of water in between meals. Don't drink water or any liquid with the meals. Drinking water is very useful. Water keeps body cells hydrated which makes it easy to fight any kind of infection or body parts to function effectively.
- Cut cabbage and put it in a blender to churn out 1 glass of juice. Sip the juice slowly for instant relief from Acid reflux. Similarly, Pumpkin also helps as one of the great acid reflux remedies for instant relief. Eating baked pumpkin immediately relieves the symptoms of heartburn. Some vegetables help reduce heartburn. Cabbage and pumpkin fall in the category of vegetables that are easy on the stomach helping the esophageal sphincter to function smoothly.
- Eat Papaya. Eating a minimum of 200 grams of ripe papaya pulp helps to instantly reduce the impact of acid reflux. Always make sure the papaya is ripe. Though Papaya is one of the very useful acid reflux home remedies it should be avoided by pregnant women.
- Eat one banana when the heartburn symptoms are felt. Banana is yet another fruit to get the same impact as papaya to combat acid reflux. Eating watermelon also helps.
- Prepare almond milk at home. Homemade almond milk is good for acid reflux and heartburn.
There is a long list of such products. Many fruits and vegetables such as carrots, green beans, and baked potatoes, and lean meat will not cause any heartburn in a healthy person. These fruits and vegetables should be included in your diet for acid reflux.
2. Acid Reflux Diet - Foods to Avoid
Since what you eat plays a very important role in your heartburn symptoms, your acid reflux diet plan not only should include what you eat but also should consider what not to eat.
Acid reflux is more about avoiding certain foods than focusing on what to eat.
Most people will learn by experience about which food items suit them and which cause heartburn.
Interestingly food item that causes acid reflux in one person may not create any problem in the other person. Most stomach acid symptoms may be common with some degree of difference in intensities. Therefore finding out what causes acid reflux in your case is necessary information. Finding out is a tedious method of hit and trial, but it must be done.
Once the food items that cause heartburn are identified, and then avoid eating that food as heartburn diet restrictions. This will save you from future acid reflux cases.
In addition to certain foods that cause acid reflux in your case, the following are some common food items that are generally prone to cause heartburn in most cases. These food items should be excluded from your Acid Reflux Disease Dietparticularly if you are more prone to acid reflux.
- All fatty foods such as fried items, high-fat meats, and high-fat dairy products cause heartburn to various degrees.
- Citrus fruits like orange, lemon, and grapefruit and their juices cause acid reflux in some cases.
- Alcoholic beverages and aerated drinks such as popular colas and sodas cause acid reflux. Even tea, coffee, and other caffeinated drinks do the same.
- Other food items vegetables and herbs that cause acid reflux include tomato, onion, garlic, mint, chili and chili powder, etc.
- It is not just what food you eat but how much you eat at a time that can also influence acid reflux and result in heartburn. Eating small portions of meals more frequently than eating large portions at a time is one of the best natural cures for acid reflux.
So, everyone who is prone to acid reflux should prepare their acid reflux diet plan based on the above list of foods to avoid plus his/her own experience of which food items work for them and which don't.
It is not just what you eat and what you should avoid, but it is the way food moves inside the body also has an impact on acid reflux.
Once you understand you will be able to control your acid reflux. It is not very difficult to realize that our eating and resting habits contribute to acid reflux. These remedies will help you to get relief from acid reflux.
3. Acid Reflux Relief by Understanding How Food Moves Inside the Body
Heartburn is one of the main discomforting symptoms of acid reflux. Relief from heartburn immediately makes you comfortable with yourself. Other symptoms of acid chronic reflux include chronic sore throat, persistent coughing, hoarseness, belching or vomiting, upset stomach, chest pain bad breath, etc. Therefore seeking relief from acid reflux becomes a priority to live a comfortable daily life.
In addition, chronic acid reflux can lead to some other serious diseases such as ulcers and cancers, or even acid reflux can itself be a symptom of some other underlying serious illness.
Temporary relief from acid reflux symptoms may give some immediate comfort and in most cases of occasional acid reflux, this is enough. However, if you have chronic acid reflux then you should find out the underlying causes of acid reflux.
One of the best ways to get relief from acid reflux in most cases requires simple awareness of how food moves to the stomach. If you remain in an upright position for 2-3 hours after eating food, then your chances of getting acid reflux will significantly reduce. Lying down after taking food affects the esophagus functioning causing acid reflux.
Yes, you got it right! This also means eating your food at least 2-3 hours before going to bed during the night.
Another common sense relief method from acid reflux is to avoid physical exertion just after food. Contraction of abdominal muscles during exertion forces the food in the stomach to move up to and into the esophagus causing acid reflux. Don’t do any physically strenuous activity within one hour of eating food.
Another simple cause of muscle contraction is stress. Avoid stress and you will get relief from acid reflux, and last but not least keeps your body weight under control.
These simple lifestyle adjustments will certainly go a long way in getting relief from acid reflux.
4. Heartburn Relief through Acid Reflux Pillow Wedge
Eighty percent of acid reflux sufferers experience heartburn symptoms at night. A wedge-shaped pillow is a simple solution for getting rid of heartburn at night. You can make it at home or buy it. The acid reflux pillow wedge helps to keep the head above the stomach level. The same effect can be achieved by raising the head level by putting bricks under the head side of the bed.
In the slanted bed sleeping or using the acid reflux wedge pillow to produce the slant, gravity helps keep the food in the stomach where it belongs.
Acid reflux wedge pillow not only helps in heartburn but also helps in snoring, constricted airways, and sinus irritation to get better sleep.
Most acid reflux wedge pillows have a 4-7% of slant gradually coming to the flat level of the bed within 2-4 feet of length.
The use of acid reflux wedge pillows is very common, therefore a large variety of such pillows are now available in the marketplace.
The basic objective of these acid reflux pillows is to elevate the head shoulder and torso at a comfortable incline making the gravity act and stopping the acid reflux.
The majority of normal pillows only raise head levels. This makes the heartburn worse because by raising the head alone the body bends from the middle. This pressures the esophagus.
It is estimated that more than 80 million people in America alone are suffering from various sleeping disorders. The majority of these disorders are due to acid reflux. Wedge pillows are a great help to these suffers.
So if you are suffering from nighttime heartburn or even from other sleeping disorders related to nasal congestion etc then grab a wedge acid reflux pillow and sleep well!