Believe it or not, I think my virtual addiction to water may have contributed to me having GERD.
Let me go back, so about 6 years ago I gave up soda and fruit juices. Like most of you, I read and heard on the radio and TV about how soda is so bad for you, along with every type of drink that has tons of sugar. So, me, being a pseudo health conscious person, gave up soda. Yeap, just like that. Cold turkey.
I went from a about a liter of soda a day to about a gallon of water a day. I think I got addicted to the drinking motion. The best thing is that water is quite accessible, and free!
I think my problem started with my obsession with drinking at least a glass of water at night. I'd just chug down a whole glass then get to bed. It's only now, with all my GERD research, that I realize that putting water in your stomach is the same as putting food in your stomach. Water, like the rest of your food, has to be digested. Also, like I've written in other posts, water dilutes stomach acids. This means that I was filling up my stomach with liquid that needed to be digested, while at the same time diluting the stomach acid that was meant to digest it.
By filling my belly with water I was forcing my stomach to digest at night (when digestion slows), while my body was lying down (no gravity to help), and diluting the stomach acid that was meant to do the digestion.
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