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GERD also increases your risk of sleep apnea, which is when you repeatedly stop and start breathing during the night. This is known as laryngopharyngeal reflux (LPR), and symptoms include hoarseness, noisy breathing and a chronic cough. The acid can also result in a sickly-tasting regurgitation in your mouth.įinally, battling acid reflux at night can lead to more serious problems if your stomach acid pools around your vocal cords and sinuses. If you’re suffering from heartburn, you should take a variety of sleeping positions. To combat insomnia, sleep with your head elevated, according to Dr. Sitting on your left side is one of the best ways to sleep with heartburn. Stomach acid can travel as far as your throat, causing you to wake up in a coughing fit. According to Gastroenterologist Lea Ann Chen, MD, right-sided acid exposure in the esophagus is the worst. The wedge-shaped pillow keeps you partially upright creating more resistance. Heartburn pain caused by acid reflux and GERD may also wake you up in the middle of the night. Sleeping on a large, specially designed wedge-shaped pillow can be effective in managing GERD-related sleep problems. You also swallow less when you’re sleeping, further reducing the normal digestive functions that keep acid reflux at bay. But when you’re lying down, you lose that helpful force. When you’re sitting upright or standing, gravity helps move food efficiently through your esophagus. but it was too late, his symptoms didnt subside, and he was diagnosed with Barrets Esophagus. He sought alternative solutions like sleeping on his left side, sleeping on a foam wedge to keep the acid down by virtue of gravity, and so on. My father treated his heartburn as nothing serious.

So, why is acid reflux worse at night, right as you’re drifting off to sleep? According to the Cleveland Clinic, you can blame gravity for this one. If heartburn is impacting your sleep, you should see a doctor. How Do Acid Reflux and GERD Affect Sleep? Many people experience the strongest acid reflux symptoms at night, and we’ll get into the reasons why next. If you’ve ever eaten a large snack right before bed, you might know the feeling. But simple lifestyle choices can also aggravate acid reflux.

So, what exactly causes this to happen? Certain conditions, including obesity and connective tissue disorders, can increase your risk. That burning sensation you feel is the acid hitting the lower part of your esophagus, which isn’t built to handle such a strong acid. Stomach acid is normal and is there to break down food and protect you from dangerous bacteria-but it belongs in your stomach and nowhere else. Reflux occurs if your LES is too weak or relaxed to close properly after this happens, allowing stomach acid to back up into your esophagus. A specific muscle, the lower esophageal sphincter (LES), controls the opening between your esophagus and your stomach during this process. Normally after you eat something, the food moves down into your stomach via your throat and esophagus.

To understand what causes acid reflux, we first need to understand how digestion works.