DHAKA: Acidity, heartburn and reflux are signs of poor lifestyle choices and unhealthy dietary habits, so the best way to treat them is by making changes to both your lifestyle and diet. Here are some useful tips that you can try.
1. Avoid eating foods that trigger acidity: Fried, spicy foods like burgers, fries and chips may taste heavenly, but they are the main culprits behind your frequent bouts of acidity. Apart from those common culprits, for some people, citrus fruits and caffeinated beverages can also trigger acidity. It’s best that you identify your food triggers and keep them out of your diet for a while, until your digestive system normalizes.
2. Eat slowly: Eating too fast can place a lot of stress on your stomach. It can cause excess acid production and increase reflux episodes. A study that was presented at the Digestive Disease Week 2003 showed that people who ate their meals slowly and extended their meals over a period of 30 minutes reported fewer number of reflux episodes compared to those who had completed their meal within 5 minutes.
3. Avoid overeating: Skipping breakfast or mid snacks increases your tendency to overeat. Overeating again increases acid production, triggering GERD symptoms, so, it’s better to have smaller meals every 2-3 hours.
4. Change your sleeping posture: For people who have a history of acidity, changing your sleeping posture can make a big difference to your reflux problem. Either sleep with your head slightly elevated, or sleep on your sides. Avoid taking daytime naps and never sleep on a full stomach.
5. Lose some weight: Your weight could be one of the causes for your acidity. If you’re overweight, you tend to feel a lot more lethargic. Due to a lack of physical activity, your metabolism slows down and your digestion gets impaired. Instead, start working out and reduce some weight. It will not only reduce acidity, but also make you feel fit and active.
6. Quit smoking: Making all of these dietary and lifestyle changes in some cases does not solve the problem and in most such cases, the affected individuals tend to be smokers. Cigarette smoke causes the esophageal sphincter muscle to relax and stimulates acid production. This acid flows towards the esophagus due to poor control of the sphincter muscles, causing reflux.
7. Drink lots of water: Water is the best agent for neutralizing stomach acidity. It just dilutes stomach acid and helps restore the pH balance of the digestive environment. Make it a point to drink at least 8-12 glasses of water every day.
8. Avoid too many antacids: People have the bad habit of popping an over-the-counter antacid to get immediate relief from acidity. By downing such pills too frequently, you’re destroying the acid producing mechanism of the digestive tract. You’ll reach a point where those antacids themselves will become a trigger for your acidity.
BDST: 1858 HRS, JAN 16, 2015
