Top Benefits of Drinking Tea When You Suffer from Acid Reflux

Living with acid reflux can feel like an endless fight against discomfort. By making dietary and lifestyle choices, GERD and reflux sufferers can improve their symptoms and make each day more comfortable. 

One of the ways to soothe acid reflux at home is by drinking tea. Before buying a cartful of tea boxes from your local grocery store, know which ones are beneficial for reflux symptoms, and which teas could make it worse. 

So, what are the best teas for acid reflux? Ginger, tulsi (holy basil), and chamomile are the top three teas for relieving acid reflux. Adding honey to your tea time should also improve their reflux-friendly properties. 

Does Tea Make Acid Reflux Worse?

Acid reflux can make mealtimes inconvenient. Patients often find themselves restricting their diet in order to alleviate GERD (gastroesophageal reflux disease) or acid reflux symptoms.

Learn more: What Is the Best Breakfast for Acid Reflux Sufferers? 

Coffees and carbonated beverages are not advised for acid reflux because both products can further aggravate the stomach. If so, is it true that teas are the only non-water option of acid reflux sufferers?

Herbal teas may be useful in soothing stomach problems, aiding with inflammation, and improving digestion, but not all teas are beneficial to GERD patients. Certain herbal teas can actually worsen reflux symptoms because of their high acid content.

Even though it’s lower than coffee and fruit juices, the acid level found in some teas could still irritate the stomach lining and worsen stomach reflux episodes. 

Bad Teas For Acid Reflux

Listed below are some of the teas that should be avoided by reflux sufferers:

• Fruit infused teas: A pot of lemon or orange infused tea might be perfect for cold winter nights, but it certainly doesn’t help reflux sufferers. The acidity content of lemon and orange could change the pH level of your tea (more so if you combine it with more acidic types of tea) and aggravate symptoms. Just like fruit juices, we would recommend staying away from fruit infused teas until your symptoms have improved. 
• Mint: Whether it’s peppermint or spearmint, mint teas have developed a reputation for worsening reflux episodes. Mint teas are associated with relaxing the stomach and improving cramping. As such, it could also cause the lower esophageal sphincter (LES) to relax, leading to acid reflux. 
• Teas with high caffeine content: Coffee isn’t the only breakfast drink with a high caffeine content. Black and oolong teas have about 60 to 90 mg and 50 to 75 mg of caffeine per 8 ounce cup, respectively. Definitely stay away from more caffeinated teas and choose milder versions. Otherwise, you can steep it for a shorter amount of time or simply add milk or water to dilute the tea. 

Tea And Acid Reflux: Does It Help?

Some teas can make acid reflux worse. That’s not to say that drinking tea can’t help soothe acid reflux at all. Just like there are bad teas for acid reflux, there are also teas beneficial to soothing symptoms. 

Specific teas are packed with antioxidants, vitamins, and inflammation properties that could improve acid reflux episodes. It’s only a matter of knowing how certain ingredients affect the digestive system, and how these can be incorporated in a patient’s everyday diet. 

Best Tea For Acid Reflux

Is ginger good for acid reflux?

Ginger is one of the best home remedies for acid reflux. It’s a powerful anti-inflammatory that can help relieve gastroesophageal irritation from exposure to acids and soothe the stomach in general. 

Ginger tea can also relieve nausea, which can greatly aid patients who are prone to vomiting during reflux episodes. Other benefits include improved blood circulation and stress-relief. 

Among the many antioxidants it contains are phenolic compounds, which are associated with improved LES contractions. As a result, drinking ginger tea could prevent the backflow of acid altogether. It can also prove beneficial to patients who experience stomach cramps due to acid build-up. 

To make ginger tea, peel some ginger, and cut it into small pieces. You can boil the ginger directly in a pot or pour it and steep it for 15 minutes. Drink a cup of ginger tea after every meal to improve reflux symptoms. Leftover ginger from steeping can be reused for another time. 

Is tulsi tea good for acid reflux?

Tulsi tea is brewed using a basil herb species. Its scientific name is Ocimum sanctum and is commercially known as holy basil. Unlike basil used in foods, holy basil is commonly treated as a multi-beneficial Indian herb used to treat anything from nausea to bronchitis. 

Tulsi tea can be made by steeping the leaves and flowers of the plant for 5 to 6 minutes. Although it can be added to food, we recommend taking it as a tea in order to get its full potency. Note that holy basil can be bitter and spicy, and is unlike other basil types. 

Tulsi tea targets digestive problems, specifically those relating to acid reflux. It can decrease stomach acid production, increase the duration of mucus secretion, and extend the life of mucus cells — all mechanics which are useful for GERD and reflux sufferers. 

As an herb, it has great anti-stress and anti-inflammation properties. Holy basil is believed to have antibacterial, antifungal, and antiviral properties, and has been used to treat mouth ulcers and other wounds.  

Is chamomile tea good for acid reflux?

Chamomile tea is just as effective as a sleeping aid as it is a GERD home remedy. This type of tea is produced by steeping the flowers of plants in the Asteraceae plant family. Although no scientific evidence explains how chamomile works to soothe stomach pains, anecdotal evidence suggests that the tea is great for helping aches, cramps, and acid reflux. 

Like ginger, chamomile also has anti-inflammatory properties. This natural ingredient can aid in digestive problems and is commonly prescribed to patients with diarrhea and irritable bowel syndrome. As such, it’s also another great tea to add to a reflux patient’s diet. 

Chamomile tea is also said to be useful in lowering gastric acidity, which is exactly what reflux patients need. It combats hyperacidity by relaxing stomach activity, preventing the stomach from producing too much acid, which produces the reflux symptoms. 

This tea is also particularly useful in lowering stress and encouraging sleep – both of which are crucial in managing reflux symptoms. As a drink, chamomile tea is pleasant and can be enjoyed throughout the day, with the exception of patients who are allergic to the drink. 

Is honey good for GERD?

Honey is the choice sweetener for teas. It’s a great way to dilute stronger teas and add another depth of flavor to your favorite drink. Commonly used as a home remedy for sore throats and colds, it turns out honey is also good for GERD sufferers. 

Although excess sugar and sweeteners are typically not recommended in a reflux diet, honey has natural medicinal properties that could help soothe the condition. Its ability to help during sore throats translates well into reflux episodes. When mixed in with a drink, honey can help soothe the esophagus from excessive acid exposure. 

This ingredient is packed with antioxidants that will help prevent diseases. Raw, unpasteurized honey also has antibacterial and antiviral properties. Raw manuka honey is known to kill bacteria and fungus, and is considered a viable natural antiseptic by many cultures. 

Its thick consistency also serves as a temporary protective barrier for the esophagus. It can coat the esophagus and provide some relief, while allowing its healing properties to soothe acid damage. 

To get the benefits of honey, mix one teaspoon with a glass of warm water or add it to a glass of warm milk. Be careful not to add too much honey to your diet since this can irritate your throat if taken excessively. 

How Do You Relieve Acid Reflux

Drinking a cup of tea isn’t enough to alleviate acid reflux. To see changes, consider the following treatments:

• Consider taking proton pump inhibitors
• Exercise at least three times a week
• Lose weight 
• Eat dinner at an earlier time 
• Take antacids before meals 
• Regulate fats (oil, dairy, sugar) in your diet
• Stay away from coffee, juices, and certain teas 

Improve Your Reflux Symptoms 

Don’t let GERD define your life. At Gastro Center NJ, we believe that patients can still manage to live full and happy lives, even with GERD. It is our mission to help you navigate around your symptoms and find a routine that will suit your lifestyle. 

Contact us today to learn more about GERD and managing symptoms. Book an appointment through our website today. 

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What Is the Best Sleeping Position If I Have Acid Reflux?

Sleeping with acid reflux can be downright impossible. Waking up in the middle of the night, choking on acid, and coughing violently are all symptoms of nighttime reflux. 

At times it can feel like you’ll never get a good sleep. However, some research suggests that your sleeping position could in fact influence your nighttime reflux. 

So, what is the best sleep position for acid reflux patients? Studies show that sleeping on your left side is better for acid reflux, whereas right-side sleeping is associated with longer esophageal acid exposure and high incidence of lower esophageal sphincter relaxation.

In this article, we discuss the science behind acid reflux and sleep, as well as the key tips to sleeping with your upper body elevated. 

Can Sleeping Positions Affect Acid Reflux?

Sufferers of acid reflux know how difficult it can be to try and get a good night’s sleep. Eating a high-fat diet, engaging in exercise before falling asleep, and being exposed to high levels of stress can result in wakefulness throughout the night. But it’s not just these things that could exacerbate reflux symptoms during bedtime.

What position you sleep in at night can also affect your reflux symptoms, studies suggest. As a patient, have you ever noticed that some nights tend to be better than others? That’s because some sleeping positions worsen acid reflux symptoms. 

Lying Down VS Sitting Up

When a person with acid reflux is lying down, the stomach contents don’t go down the stomach. In fact, it’s more likely for the stomach contents to travel back up the esophagus, leading to acid reflux symptoms.

Compare that to sitting or standing where gravity pulls the stomach acids and digested food contents away from your esophagus. 

When in doubt, make sure your head is elevated to help your body keep stomach contents right where they belong. 

Common Complaints From Acid Reflux Patients

The onslaught of reflux symptoms while sleeping vary from one patient to another. The bottomline stands: it’s difficult to get a good night’s sleep if you’re experiencing acid reflux at night. 

Here are just some of the top complaints when it comes to sleeping with acid reflux:

1. Heartburn worse when lying on left side

Sleeping on your side tends to worsen your heartburn symptoms, but you also notice that sleeping on a specific side makes it even worse. It turns out what side you’re lying on can in fact affect how your symptoms flare-up. 

A substantial amount of studies found that reflux patients tend to get worse heartburn when they’re lying on their right side. Although it’s unclear what mechanisms cause this, scientists believe that sleeping on the right side tends to trigger symptoms longer than lying on the left. 

Another study showed that lying on your right side prolongs the esophagus’ exposure to the acid. Doctors believe that lying on your right side is more likely to induce relaxation of the LES (lower esophageal sphincter), which is the muscle responsible for keeping stomach contents in, and preventing acid reflux. 

The general consensus among doctors and patients alike is that lying on your left side is more beneficial for heartburn patients. But if you’re one of the uncommon cases where reflux strikes worse when you’re lying on your left, consider experimenting with different sleeping positions to figure out which one will help soothe your symptoms.

If you realize that your symptoms don’t get better even with different sleeping positions, consider making dietary and lifestyle modifications to reap long-term benefits. 

2. Waking up with heartburn in the middle of the night

Falling asleep soundly can be a feat for reflux patients. Nighttime heartburn is a common occurrence for reflux patients, so much so that 75% of reflux patients report experiencing heartburn at night at least once a week. 

Patients often report waking up choking, coughing, or feeling a strong acid sensation at the back of their throat. This is also accompanied by a sharp chest pain that could easily be mistaken for a heart attack. 

Although doctors have yet to understand what separates daytime and nighttime heartburn, a study revealed the possible indicators of nighttime heartburn, which include:

• High BMI
• Consumption of sodas and carbonated drinks
• Daytime sleepiness
• Use of benzodiazepines (anti-anxiety medicine)
• Hypertension
• Asthma
• Snoring 

Patients with nighttime heartburn tend to be treated differently than those who only experience symptoms in the daytime. This is because nighttime reflux sufferers often have more complex and aggressive symptoms compared to daytime patients. 

At night, patients with heartburn symptoms aren’t just experiencing empty symptoms; they’re also experiencing acid reflux. Nighttime reflux tends to have a “longer clearance time”, which means the acid stays longer in the esophagus before receding again. Because of this, doctors suggest more intensive therapy methods in order to protect the esophagus from prolonged acid contact. 

Chronic esophageal exposure to acid may eventually lead to esophagitis and respiratory complications. Part of the GERD diagnosis involves distinguishing between nighttime and daytime symptoms in order to provide the right treatment plan. 

If you notice that your reflux is more inconvenient at night, let your doctor know. An upper endoscopy might be recommended to you in order to understand whether you’re experiencing sleep apnea (disruptive snoring and breathing) or gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD).

3. Stomach acid coming out of nose while sleeping

When lying down, stomach acids can travel back up the esophagus and reach the sinuses. This can result in sinus infections, respiratory problems, and bad breath. 

Some patients also report stomach content coming out of their nose or mouth while sleeping. This symptom is observed in more severe cases of GERD and requires immediate medical intervention. When left untreated, this could expose your sinuses to the acid and bacteria in the regurgitated contents, leading to sinusitis. 

Taking antacids before falling asleep is a common remedy for GERD patients. If you don’t feel any relief after taking medication, your doctor might put you on PPIs (proton pump inhibitors) in order to reduce your stomach’s acid production. 

Stomach acids coming out of the nose is a severe type of symptom and would require more drastic measures in order to be alleviated. You might be asked to lose weight and change your eating habits for long-term relief. 

Does Lying On Stomach Help Reflux?

Finding a peaceful position to sleep in can be a tough one for acid reflux sufferers. Because lying down prevents gravity from doing its job keeping the food contents back down, patients feel anxious about falling asleep. Sleep deprivation becomes a problem among acid reflux sufferers in fear of choking or asphyxiation while asleep. 

Lying down alone can trigger acid reflux effects, but it gets worse with certain positions. Lying flat on your stomach produces the same result as lying on your back, if not worse. 

When you’re lying flat on the bed, your stomach and esophagus are on the same level, making it easy for stomach contents to find their way into the esophagus. When you’re standing up or sitting down, you’re allowing gravity to move these digested bits throughout the rest of your stomach. 

Lying on your stomach also tends to put pressure on your stomach. This alone could push the stomach contents to travel upwards and cause heartburn. 

The next time you want to lie on your stomach, make sure your head is elevated. Support your neck with a pillow and keep it a few inches higher than your stomach. Otherwise, you’re asking for a bad reflux episode.

What Side Do You Lie On For Acid Reflux?

Despite the general discomfort associated with acid reflux, sufferers aren’t entirely hopeless. Research shows that sleeping on the left side is the most beneficial position for sufferers. 

Compared to lying down on the right, which has been associated with higher instances of lower esophageal sphincter relaxations and longer esophageal acid exposure, lying on the left side is associated with an increase in sphincter pressure (making it less likely for the LES to malfunction and let in stomach contents) and higher esophageal pH (which neutralizes acid contents from the stomach). 

In order to optimize a patient’s sleeping, researchers underwent a study involving different sleeping positions. They found that patients who slept on the left side elevated experienced the less esophageal acid exposure in comparison to those sleeping on the right. 

Researchers also found that those sleeping on the left elevated position were able to spend more time sleeping in this position than others, making this not only a beneficial but viable sleeping position for reflux sufferers. 

At the end of the day, you should try whatever works best for your body. Some positions work well with patients, while others experience discomfort even after assuming a “good” sleep position. 

Why Does Acid Reflux Improve When Lying Down

Despite being a common gastrointestinal disorder, symptoms aren’t always shared among patients. The general consensus is that reflux gets worse after lying down, but it’s also possible to relieve your symptoms by doing so. 

If you’re a patient who feels relief after lying down, it’s possible that your reflux may be triggered by the following:

• You engaged in a stressful physical activity and lying down relaxes your body and your stomach
• You were emotionally stressed and lying down has physically relaxed  you
• You are in an elevated position, which helps keep the stomach contents from travelling back up the esophagus

As a result, your acid reflux symptoms are alleviated, not aggravated, by lying down. Knowing your triggers is the first step to living with GERD. 

Choking On Acid Reflux While Sleeping: What To Do

What Causes It 

If you’re suffering from chronic reflux, you might have awoken to coughing, vomiting, or general discomfort in your throat. 

When your stomach is regurgitating digested contents, the acid could linger in your throat and irritate the esophageal lining, which could trigger a cough. It’s also possible for acid to travel back up and reach the mouth, which causes choking. 

Patients who experience choking often report the following symptoms:

• Waking up in the middle of the night with a dry cough (cough without phlegm)
• Waking up nauseated and with the strong urge to vomit 
• Strong acid taste and smell after waking up 
• Sharp pain at the back of the throat 
• Difficulty breathing within the first few minutes of waking up

Can You Die From Acid Reflux Choking?

Sleep interruption is the worst thing that could happen to a patient suffering from acid reflux. Although inconvenient, there’s no need to worry about aspiration. Aspiration typically occurs as the result of inflammation or infection. 

Regurgitation on its own is not going to cause aspiration. Having a full stomach and vomiting afterwards are likelier causes of aspiration. Because the body operates on an automatic flight or fight instinct, patients will wake up during a reflux episode and cough as a response. Aspiration is uncommon in reflux patients because the body naturally wakes up and reacts to the presence of acid in the esophagus. 

Aspiration is more common in patients who have an impaired level of consciousness, such as when they’re sedated or drunk. 

Relieving Heartburn At Home: Tips For Better Sleep

1. Take Antacids

Take an antacid an hour before going to sleep to neutralize stomach acids. Note that not all antacids are accessible to pregnant women; avoid antacids with magnesium during your pregnancy. Tums, Maalox, and Rolaids are great antacid options for all patients. 

If you find that over-the-counter antacids don’t help with your nighttime reflux, ask your doctor for reflux prescriptions. Medicine such as proton pump inhibitors can block acid production altogether and allow your esophagus to heal in the process. 

2. Eat Your Last Meal Earlier

Eating meals too late at night is one of the main triggers of nighttime acid reflux. Some patients eat as early as 3 PM in order to prevent nighttime acid reflux. 

If you can’t avoid snacking at night, make sure to wait 1 to 2 hours before lying down to allow the food to travel through your digestive system. Taking a 30-minute walk would improve your chances of a good night’s sleep. 

3. Sleep with Extra Pillows

Sleeping on an inclined position on your left is the best position for acid reflux sufferers. Throw in a few pillows during bedtime to make yourself more comfortable. 

4. Wear Loose Clothing

Wearing tight pajamas can add pressure to your stomach, contributing to your acid reflux symptoms. Wear loose, comfy clothes before going to bed. 

5. Drink Ginger Tea

Ginger is a known home remedy to inflammation, and is also a great remedy for heartburn. Boil some ginger to make tea; this can help relieve nausea, allowing you to get a better quality of sleep. Skip the ginger ale though since it’s carbonated and will only make you more acidic. 

Get the Best Sleep of Your Life

Tired of not getting enough sleep? Living with GERD doesn’t have to be a nightmare. At Gastro Center NJ, we do everything we can to help make GERD a manageable part of your life.

Whether it’s sleeping on a foam memory pillow or prescribing a specific diet, we’re here to give you solutions that will improve your nighttime reflux, facilitating better sleep. 

Get in touch with us today to learn more about nighttime reflux and how the gastroenterologists of Gastro Center NJ can get you the best sleep of your life. 

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