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 I experience IMMEDIATE relief from my Heartburn and GERD (Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease) with the following exercise that requires NO DRUGS. It is as easy as breathing -- in fact, IT IS breathing.  If you suffer from continual bouts of heartburn caused by acid reflux, perhaps you might wish to try this breathing exercise. If it helps you in any way, discuss it with your doctor.
I first offer some background to my problem and how I developed the exercise.  Then I offer the exercise, and conclude with my own disclaimer.

Copyright Patrick Cruickshank, 2003.
You are free to copy and share this text as often as you wish, but not for any fee of any kind.


Background

My first bout with significant acid reflux occurred after a particularly large banquet on a vacation trip. I awoke in the middle of the night with acid in my throat and entering my mouth.  My doctor later diagnosed my condition as a "hiatal (hiatus) hernia". Any operation, he explained at the time, would be quite intrusive and would leave a great scar along my chest.  He advised me to carefully choose my foods and control my food intake. I and my doctor both agree in taking as little medication as possible; however, he prescribed Ranitidine, for those times when I simply must have some relief.
I later found that chewable tablets of Papaya and Pineapple enzymes eased my condition. Virtually any chewable papaya enzyme tablet product will suffice.  Though not as strong as Ranitidine, they present a natural alternative that I and my doctor had agreed upon.  I have not taken any Ranitidine now for perhaps ten years.
I have been involved in Martial Arts for most of my life.  Ten years of Praying Mantis Kung Fu taught me very much, including how to utilize proper breathing techniques to improve my stamina, self-control, and relaxation. I learned through cause and effect, with my own body, how these breathing techniques have provided me with immediate relief from heartburn.

The Exercise

The key to succeeding with this exercise is relaxation.
If this is the first time you are trying this, attempt it sitting down in an upright position. After you learn the practice of this technique, you may later achieve a good measure of relief from any position - perhaps even upside down?

1 Relax your jaw, with your teeth slightly apart and your lips closed.
2.
 Gently place your tongue onto your upper palate behind your front teeth.
3.
 Breathe through your nostrils only.
4.
 Relax your stomach muscles.
5.
 Place your hands gently at your sides or on your lap.
6.
 On a slow count of 1 - 4, gently inhale fully while allowing your stomach to be pushed outward by the action of your lungs. Allow your lungs to gently expand downward. Do not allow your chest cavity to expand.  Keep in mind that you are training your lungs to expand toward each other and downward;  this may only work if you constrain your chest from expanding.
7.
 On a slow count of 1 - 4, gently exhale fully while allowing your stomach and chest to return to their original position.
8.
 While inhaling, visualise your lungs expanding toward each other and downward, compressing your esophagus closed.
9.
 Repeat steps 6 - 8 for numerous repetitions, or until you experience relief.
While learning this technique, I recommend that you learn how to "read" your body. As you inhale, you will sense some tightness in your stomach, chest and sternum.  It is difficult to focus on one part of the abdomen versus another, but given time I have found that I can conduct some measure of isolation between my chest, my stomach, and the area between the two (below my sternum).
I have found this exercise to be most useful to me if I focus on the following:
  • relax my chest, though not enough to allow the rib cage to expand.  This may sound counterintuitive, but it is possible to allow the rib cage muscles to remain firm without straining.  Restraining the rib cage from expanding forces the lungs to expand inward (compressing the esophagus) and downward.
  • lightly tighten the muscles beneath the sternum
If you feel a sharp pain in the center of your chest behind and below your sternum, you are applying too much pressure.  Ease off until the pain disappears and you are able to sense your muscles there gently but firmly press inward.
Also, you may find that your chest expands minimally.  This may not be avoided but if kept to an absolute minimum, the exercise may still work properly.

Conclusions and Discussion

Prevention is the best medicine, is it not?
The esophagus is the thin tube passing from your throat, down between your lungs, into your stomach.  A sphincter muscle at the connection with the stomach prevents acid from travelling up your throat.  It is the failure of this muscle that allows stomach acid to travel up your esophagus; this is the condition known as "acid reflux".
Acid reflux is exacerbated by a number of factors, including excess weight, too much food, and consuming the wrong foods for this condition.  If you have read the literature, you know that this includes too much of foods such as fatty foods, alcohol, citrus fruits, coffee, bananas, and chocolate (Oh, NO! Must I give up Chocolate!?). At first, try to reduce your dependence upon these foods.
This exercise works, I theorize, by (temporarily) equalizing the pressure between my stomach and my esophagus (lower throat). It appears to utilize my own internal organs -- my lungs -- to expand inward and help to compress the esophagus closed, while forcing acid downward, and back into my stomach where it belongs.
I cannot say if this exercise will provide long-term benefits that will eliminate the need for surgical intervention. I only know that it has never been prescribed to me, and that it works for me at this time.  For this reason, I wish to share my discovery with other people.
I still experience heartburn and manage it with this exercise, sometimes several times a day, though some days I experience no heartburn and have no need to perform the exercise.  On particularly bad days, I will supplement with chewable papaya enzyme tablets (usually because I have eaten too much food, or too much of the wrong foods).  I fully expect that I will practice this exercise for the rest of my life.

And Now for the Disclaimer

I am NOT a doctor or medical practitioner of any kind.  I am simply a man who has recognized a correlation between his activities and the reaction of his own body.
I do not view this as a cure, but rather a GERD management technique.
This exercise has not been the subject of any clinical tests, to my knowledge.
This exercise may not work for you.  My problem was diagnosed as a hiatal hernia (which my grandfather has had), and this exercise may only function on this type of problem.  Furthermore, severity of GERD may determine the success rate of this exercise.
I will not be responsible for any negative effects that you may experience from this exercise.  If there are any, it is possible that you are not conducting the exercise properly, or forcing the effect.
You must still consult with your physician if you have continual acid reflux (heartburn).

References and Further Reading
Rather than explain what GERD is, I offer below a number of excellent web sites that have already explained this condition very well.  Following are some excellent sources of further information on Heartburn and GERD.  Please note that I offer these links based upon my own research, and none of these sites offer any endorsement of my breathing exercise.
Feedback
If my exercise works for you, I would like to know.  Please send me a BRIEF e-mail at the e-mail by clicking on my name below, and include your full name and city or state/province of residence for validation purposes. Keep in mind, however, that I am a private individual with not much time to read e-mails -- I may view messages once in a while. If you submit feedback, I interpret it as permission to share your opinions on this web site at any time.

Sincerely,
Patrick Cruickshank, P.Eng., MBA
Port Moody, British Columbia
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Revision History:
First posted:  Autumn 1999
Updates:  May 2000, November 2002, February 6 2003 and February 20, 2003.
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