Are you sleep-deprived? Chances are, if you are sleep-deprived, you may also suffer from acid reflux. There are many people around the world who struggle with sleep deprivation and acid reflux but have no idea that these two issues may be connected. In this article, we’re going to explore what some of the latest research says to provide you with a greater understanding as to why this is the case and how being deprived of sleep can increase your chances of severe acid reflux.
No matter if you get the occasional acid reflux or you have constant challenges, what we’ll discuss will help you better understand what may be happening—and it may even help you alleviate this in the future. Let’s get into the first connection between sleep deprivation and acid reflux: how losing sleep increases your body’s ability to produce stomach acid.
Being Sleep Deprived Increases Acid Production
GERD, also known as gastroesophageal reflux disease, is tied to sleep deprivation and can even cause it, but sleep deprivation can also cause further acid production or severity of GERD symptoms. In other words, the less sleep that you get, the more likely you are to experience worse GERD symptoms, including more production of acid even while you sleep (Source: ScienceDirect).
This can also increase over time, as the more nights you struggle with sleep deprivation or sleep disturbances, the more likely you are to experience more intense acid reflux. A study on rats showed that sleep disturbances cause acid reflux, but when these disturbances were limited, rats experienced less acid reflux. So, if you struggle with acid reflux and you also get poor sleep, this could be why!
Sleep Deprivation Reduces Esophageal Clearance
Another part of this vicious cycle of sleep deprivation and acid reflux is that the more sleep you lose, the less your esophagus can be cleared. That is, your esophagus will struggle to empty itself of acid if you continue to experience sleep disturbances and cannot sleep throughout the night. With more acid production, you’re going to experience more acid in your esophagus and, ultimately, less peaceful, uninhibited sleep.
With the worsening of GERD and other related conditions that increase acid production, your esophagus will not be clear, and you'll continue to experience acid during the night, which can be pretty unpleasant (Source: PubMed). Over time, this can actually hurt the body, including what many researchers have discovered regarding the lower esophageal sphincter, which plays a vital role in your health and overall sleep quality if you struggle with acid reflux.
It May Weaken the Lower Esophageal Sphincter (LES)
In addition to experiencing more severe acid production and less clearing of your esophagus, your lower esophageal sphincter (LES) will likely weaken. The LES is an integral part of your digestive system, but when GERD symptoms occur, including more acid reflux, your esophagus relaxes, making it easier for you to feel the acid and more likely that it will continue to creep up your esophagus.
Over time, this can actually lead to a big issue as your esophagus is no longer as strong as it once was. That's why being sleep-deprived and struggling with acid reflux can be so difficult and harmful for the body: because it can limit the effectiveness of your body's ability to process and maintain normal acid levels (Source: PubMed). However, sleep deprivation and the relaxing of this muscle do not just indicate you’ll experience more acid, but it can also limit how quickly your stomach empties.
Losing Sleep Slows the Emptying of the Stomach
Experiencing dysregulated sleep also means that your digestive system might be delayed, which can also impact your acid production and the continuation of GERD or acid reflux. If you struggle with acid reflux, you want to have normal digestive patterns, as the longer it can take for your stomach to empty, the more acid there is to potentially make its way up to your upper esophagus.
Studies showed that sleep apnea, which can contribute to sleep deprivation, actually induces less gastric emptying. That means that the more disturbances you experience when you sleep, the more that this signals to your body that acid production can occur. This can be bad news for many people, especially in terms of the long-term health impacts and the potential for worse conditions, including how sensitive your esophagus may become over time as a result of being sleep-deprived and suffering from consistent acid reflux.
Over Time, Your Esophagus Becomes More Sensitive
When you combine the weakening of the LES with the other impacts we have discussed that are due to sleep deprivation and acid reflux, you may have already guessed what happens in the long term: your esophagus becomes more sensitive. A randomized control trial confirmed this, demonstrating that GERD patients who also had less sleep throughout the week had a higher score when it came to the sensitivity of their esophagus.
If you struggle with GERD and sleep deprivation, this doesn’t mean that your esophagus is forever damaged, as it takes many years for this to become a real issue. A few nights of losing sleep or a few weeks of acid reflux will not cause significant problems for your body. However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take steps to protect your body’s health, ensuring that sleep deprivation and acid reflux are a thing of the past and that you enjoy quality rest.
Support Sleep Health and Limit Acid Reflux
Now that you know how sleep deprivation and acid reflux are closely intertwined, you can take steps to improve your health. Acid can keep us up at night, but sleep deprivation can make our acid worse! What do we do about that? There are plenty of things we can do.
We can create better sleep environments, prioritize foods that limit our acid production, and ensure that our overall health is taken care of. By taking these steps, we can promote our health, limit the instances of sleep-deprived nights, and even lower our chances of that unpleasant feeling of acid creeping up when we’re trying to get some quality rest.
