Heartburn Got You Wide Awake?
Wed Mar 24 06:15:07 2010
Do you often wake up in the middle of the night due to heartburn problems? Perhaps your bed position could help!
Do you sometimes wake up in the middle of the night due to a heartburn? Even though, I know that it is harmful to eat food late at night, I still do it for one reason or another; and I did often suffer the consequences in the form of waking up during the night due to a painful heartburn.
Whether your mid-sleep heartburn is the result of a chronical desease or a simple party during which you ate too much before bed - your pleasurable sleep can be enhanced with the the help of simple bed tilt.
This suggestion I found in Stanley Coren's book called "Sleep Theives", and it involves raising the head of your bed couple of inches higher. Heartburn does not occur because there is too much acid created by the stomach, but because the muscular barrier or valve between the esophagus and the stomach opens, allowing acid, bile and other stomach contents into the esophagus. The name of this muscular barrier is the Lower Esophageal Sphincter (LES).
If this barrier opens up during our sleep, with the help of gravity, stomach acid will find its way into esophagus. Rasing the head of your bed few inches tilts the bed in a way that makes the backflow less likely to happen. The angle shouldn't be too high, otherwise you'll have trouble falling asleep. However, even with a slight tilt, personally, I see great improvements.
Many beds come with adjustable legs. If you own such a bed, you're in luck as titling your bed won't be any trouble. Even though, my bed does not have such adjustable legs, the legs of the head of the bed are nicely hidden from view by the furniture; I simply placed two interlock bricks under the legs. If you're having trouble raising the bed itself, perhaps, you could place something under the under-mattress?
Keep in mind that the goal is to have a tilted surface on which to sleep, not just to raise the upper half of your body. In other words, adding an extra pillow or placing one under your mattress will unlikely help.
Sleep tight!
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