Nourished Living

24 - The Hidden Cause of Heartburn + Practical Tips for Relief

• Courtney Podany

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If you struggle with heartburn, bloating, fullness after meals, or indigestion, this episode is packed with tools to help you find lasting relief.

In today’s episode of the Nourished Living Podcast, I’m diving deep into the surprising connection between stomach acid and heartburn. You’ll learn why so many Americans struggle with low stomach acid, how this impacts digestion, nutrient absorption, and overall health, and what natural steps you can take to restore balance—without relying on band-aid solutions like antacids.

I’ll also share simple, practical strategies you can start using today to support healthy digestion, from mindful eating practices to natural remedies like digestive bitters, lemon water, and apple cider vinegar. Plus, I talk about my own stress-relief habit that takes less than two minutes and helps me reset during busy mom life.

What you’ll learn in this episode:

  • Why 90% of Americans may actually have low stomach acid
  • How low stomach acid contributes to heartburn, bloating, and indigestion
  • The hidden risks of long-term antacid use
  • Daily practices to support digestion and naturally boost stomach acid
  • Foods and lifestyle shifts that can soothe heartburn and improve gut health

Listen in and discover how to heal your digestion from the root cause—so you can truly absorb and benefit from the nourishing foods you eat.

🔗 Resources & Links Mentioned:

Welcome to the Nourished Living Podcast, where I'll be diving deep into nutrition, holistic wellness, and practical tips to help you live your healthiest, most vibrant life. I am Courtney Paani, a nutritional therapist, certified personal trainer, type one diabetic and mom. And I'm here to help you take charge of your health with ease and confidence. Together we'll explore how to nourish your body, mind, and soul in a way that feels good and sustainable. So grab your favorite beverage. Take a deep breath, and let's get into the episode. I. Hello, and welcome back to the Nourished Living Podcast. I am your host, Courtney Podany. I have a great episode in store for you today, but real quick before we get into it, yesterday was my daughter. Fifth birthday. I can't believe it has already been five years. Does that make her no longer a toddler anymore? I'm not sure how that works. I feel like she's not really toddling around. She is quite active and busy and on her way. And then my boys will be three this Friday, which is also crazy. But anyway, this is our first year at Real School. Gianna started kindergarten and Wow. I feel like there is just this new level of. Of exhaustion that was unlocked, that comes from school. Um, it, it's different, um, than my past level of exhaustion. But, you know, just different drop off and pickup times, making lunches every morning, homework, ordering yearbooks, picture day. I mean, the hits just keep on coming. Am I right? Even though she is out of the house. More now the mental load is real and has increased significantly. So I would just like to say that I hope all of the parents out there are surviving, getting back into the swing of school and activities. And if you need some extra support, be sure to check out my stress relief episode, which was episode 20, which gives quick practical recommendations on managing and reducing stress because honestly, those are the only things keeping me sane right now. And just real quick while we are on the topic of stress relief and stuff I shared on Instagram the other day that, a new habit that I have added into my day to help manage and reduce that stress, and it literally takes. No effort, no energy, nothing. So maybe you can add this in as well. So I have a dog and you know, like every two hours we have to let him outside to go potty. Well, previously I would just let him out and then like five minutes later go check and see if he wanted to come back inside. Well, now every time I let him out to. Go outside. I go outside with him. I take my sandals off, I step my feet into the grass and I get some sunshine on my skin and just feel the fresh air. And even if it only adds up to like two minutes in that time period, I instantly feel so much calmer and I know that I will get to do that again in another few hours. So. It's like a quick little reset for you that honestly, you know, takes no energy, no effort, but really can recharge you quickly. So if you have a dog, I would suggest doing that as well. All righty. We are back talking about digestion and more specifically stomach acid and how that has an effect on heartburn. I finished my nutritional therapy certification in 2019, and that was when I started first seeing nutrition clients, and I very quickly started to notice a trend. It did not matter what gender I was working with, what age they were, their background. It seems like literally every client I saw experienced heartburn, and it was not just like occasionally here and there. It was happening on a weekly, if not daily basis, and this information really stood out to me. Up until that point, I had never really had heartburn at all. But I had learned there was definitely something that could be put in place to begin eliminating all of this pain for my clients. And that was actually how my very first course that I ever created, transpired. I created gut rescue as a group coaching program because based on what I had seen in a very short time span, it seemed like everyone in their mother needed to hear this information. Okay. So I already really enjoy talking about digestion. Like I've said before, and I'm sure I, this will not be the last time I talk about it here because you know, even if you are eating healthy, supportive, or because even if you are eating, healing, supporting foods, but your digestion is a little awry, you are not fully reaping all of the wonderful benefits of those foods. And stomach acid definitely plays a role into that as well. So that is what we are going to dive into today. And how stomach acid can actually help your heartburn. So let's start with a quick recap of the stomach before we talk about stomach acid. The stomach is the first major digestive organ that our food comes into Contact with. The esophagus is really only a means of transportation that takes the food from our mouth into our stomach. So it's in the stomach where we begin the breakdown of our proteins. The optimal stomach environment sits at a pH of one to three, so that's very acidic. The pH scale ranges from zero to 14, with zero being the most acidic, and 14 being the least acidic stomach acid, which is also known as hydrochloric acid. I will probably refer to it as both here. Stomach acid or hydrochloric acid. Hydrochloric acid has a pH of 0.8, so that's not even one. That is more acidic than the ideal stomach environment. So stomach acid begins the breakdown of proteins into their smaller counterpart amino acids, protein. It needs to be broken down into amino acids so we can absorb them. If proteins are unable to be broken down, the whole thing just continues moving through our digestive tract and we lose out on the benefits of those proteins. But there are many additional functions of stomach acid that do not involve food, but are still equally important. Stomach acid disinfects our stomach. Or stomach acid disinfects, our stomach can kill any bad bacteria or parasites and prevent fungal overgrowth from occurring. So our stomach is actually one of our first line of defense of defenses in preventing illnesses and sicknesses. One of the many reasons it's essential to have adequate stomach acid and the ideal pH for our stomach environment. Stomach acid stimulates gastrin, and gastrin is multifaceted. It works with the gallbladder to produce bile and bile helps us break down our fats and to continue food moving through the intestines. Stomach acid is responsible for absorbing iron, copper, zinc, calcium, B12 and folate. If we do not have enough stomach acid, then we aren't absorbing these vitamins and minerals and that can lead to malnutrition. No, you don't have to be underweight to be malnourished. If you are consistently lacking certain vitamins or nutrients, you can absolutely be malnourished. So stomach acid plays a huge role in digestion, but it also helps with our immune system and keeping us healthy, all things that are vital to our everyday health and happiness. However, it is estimated that 90% of Americans have low stomach acid, which in large part is due to the standard American diet. There are five factors that are typically present in the sad diet that can deplete stomach acid. Those factors are high levels of stress, high intake of processed carbs, high intake of alcohol, nutritional deficiencies, and food allergies. When we don't have sufficient stomach acid in our stomach, the food we eat ends up staying in our stomach longer than it should. We don't have the resources to continue the food moving to the small intestine in a timely manner. When this occurs, carbs begin to ferment in our stomach. Proteins, petrify and fats become rancid all before they're able to move along into our small intestine. This is when heartburn will occur. When the food stays too long in our stomach. It begins to irritate the lower esophageal sphincter, which is the flap that leads food from the esophagus into the stomach. This should only be a one-way motion. In a perfect world, the lower esophageal sphincter would only work to move things in an up to down fashion and not down to up. But when this becomes irritated because of the food staying in the stomach too long, it will open. And that's when food and acid flow back into the esophagus and when we get the burning sensation of heartburn. Therefore, having low stomach acid can be a major contributor of heartburn. So let's talk ant acids and acid blockers. There are a ton. Some of the more common ones you might have heard of are Tums Maalox, Pepto Bismol nexium, and then there are doctor strength prescribed ones that you could get from your doctor. The job of these medications is to raise the pH of the chime so that when it does flow back into the esophagus, it doesn't burn. However, that only temporarily it relieves your symptoms. Then since the chyme is not acidic enough to compel the pyloric sphincter, the pyloric sphincter is the flap between the stomach and the small intestine. To open up. It has a harder time passing from the stomach to the small intestine, keeping that food in our stomach even longer. Chyme is the food that we've eaten mixed with some digestive juices. If you've ever felt really full after a meal or bloated or like you are having some indigestion and are just uncomfortable, that could be because the food has not moved into the small intestine and it really is just sitting heavy in your stomach. If the problem is not addressed, the symptoms will persist, and it can turn into this vicious cycle of having to rely on ant acids to become pain free. But that is just a bandaid fix that is not a solution, and it is not a, and it does not address the root cause of why the heartburn is occurring in the first place. And I believe on the box of any type of ant acids, you'll find it recommends, no, it doesn't recommend using the product longer than 14 days. Well, once you get into that cycle, I'm sure the symptoms continue longer than 14 days. And ant acids come with their own set of side effects when taken too long. Increased ant acid use could lead to anemia and osteoporosis, which in turn leads to poor breakdown of foods causing malabsorption. You could start experiencing anxiety, insomnia, or depression. This is due to not absorbing the amino acids from the proteins we eat. The protein is not broken down within the stomach because of the low stomach acid. You could develop food allergies or leaky gut food. Allergies and leaky gut happen when undigested proteins exit the stomach and enter the bloodstream. Remember when I said earlier, if the proteins can't be broken down, they leave the stomach in that form too. That is exactly how food allergies and leaky gut develop. Our body doesn't recognize that full protein and it unleashes an immune attack because it thinks it's a foreign invader. The reason we don't recognize the full protein is because we are supposed to be absorbing their smaller part of amino acids. We are not supposed to be absorbing just protein, how it entered our mouth. And like I mentioned earlier, our stomach is a first line of defense against pathogens and bacteria, but if the acid is not present, we could develop infections like salmonella or e coli or really any type of bacteria that enters the body that is not able to be killed by her stomach acid because they're met with a pleasant, basic environment and are able to thrive. Then some other gut issues that have the potential to develop are ulcerative colitis, IBS, Crohn's disease, celiac disease, and diverticulitis. So how can we fix this? Well, if you listen to my digestion episode, episode nine, you'll remember the phrase, you are not what you eat. You are what you absorb. And we are not able to absorb foods while we are in the stressed state of fight or flight, also known as the sympathetic state. We need to eat in the rest and digest state or parasympathetic state. That makes sense, right? The name is literally rest and digest. Okay. In this state, the food we eat is broken down adequately so we can then absorb the smaller nutrients to achieve this. I have a few recommendations. One, carve out time to eat. Don't eat your breakfast in the car or food on the go. Sit down at a table, even if it means getting up 10 minutes earlier. And when you sit down, before you take your first bite, take five deep belly breaths. This lets our body know we are in a safe place, and if we are in the sympathetic state, we can switch over to the parasympathetic state. When we are here, our body prepares for digestion and things like proteins will not be exiting in their full form, leading to other chaos. Two, we wanna chew each bite 25 times. So remember, the goal of digestion it is to break down foods so small that we can absorb the nutrients. When we chew each bite 25 times, our stomach doesn't have to work quite as hard for the breakdown. The food doesn't stay in the stomach longer than it is welcome and continues on less fermentation, putrefaction and rancidity, and three prior to each meal. You can try digestive bitters, apple cider vinegar, or lemon juice. Not all of those, just one. You'll want to add some apple cider vinegar or lemon juice to some water and drink that about 20 minutes prior to eating to promote natural stomach acid production. If you end up buying digestive bitters, those will come with their own instructions, either putting a dropper in some water, or right onto your tongue. It probably varies based on the brand. A brand of digestive bitters I like is called urban moonshine, and it can be purchased on Amazon anyway. The science behind this bitter concoction is that the bitterness evokes a visceral reflex within us that stimulates the production of hydrochloric acid. So then when you sit down 20 minutes later, the stomach acid is present and ready to begin digesting as soon as food enters. Also, by avoiding water 20 minutes before your meal, you're not diluting the current acid or the environ. The pH of water is seven, which is neutral and much higher than the 0.8 of stomach acid and the one to three of the stomach environment. Not drinking water right before meal times maintains the acidity. Again, if it is too much of a basic environment, the food doesn't break down and doesn't move along, and these are all safe, natural ingredients. That help to restore normal stomach function, improve digestion, and relieve the symptoms of indigestion, heartburn, and acid reflux. Okay, so here's the quick CliffNotes version of what I just said. To cultivate the best digestive experience and naturally produce stomach acid. Okay, 20 minutes prior to eating. Utilize digestive bitters, apple cider vinegar or lemon juice, and a few ounces of water to produce stomach acid. Eat in a parasympathetic state, which can be done by taking five deep belly breaths when you sit down for your meal and chew each bite 25 times to utilize the mouth to assist the stomach in the breakdown process. Also, if you would like to try a more natural route for relieving the heartburn feeling, there are some foods and lifestyle recommendations that might help. Bananas are a very alkaline fruit. Alkaline is the opposite of acidic, and it has soothing capabilities. Peppermint tea relaxes the stomach. Ginger is very calming and decreases inflammation. Chamomile tea has soothing capabilities as well, and slippery elm can be used for decreasing symptoms of IBS and constipation. A couple of lifestyle recommendations you can practice are using pillows to elevate your head at night and sleeping on your left side. Our stomach sits on the left side of our body and is able to continue functioning while you are on your left side. It is much harder for the stomach to work while you're on your right side, so that could possibly be another reason you're waking up in the middle of the night and why it feels like you're still digesting. Maybe you were just lying on your right side. The combination of your stomach having to work longer and harder and the food not moving through as quickly as it should was what woke you up. Lying on that left side allows for an easier transition of food from the stomach to the small intestine. So if you are taking any type of ant acid, maybe this will help you to reduce the need for it to reduce the need for it. But if this was something that was prescribed, please contact your doctor before completely stopping and have them assist you in the best way to get you off of it. But I have had clients that have suffered from gerd, gastroesophageal Reflux Disease for 20 years, and they were able to completely come off of their medication, of course, with the help from their doctor. And another one of my clients would experience heartburn every single night when they laid down for bed without fail. After two weeks of this same exact protocol I outlined above, I outlined she got rid of her heartburn. At one of our check-ins about two months into working together. She couldn't even remember the last time she had any heartburn. I had to ask about it. She hadn't mentioned it, so I was the one who brought it up, not her, so that was very cool. So if you struggle with heartburn or even a sense of excess fullness after meals, bloating and gas, after meals or indigestion, I would definitely give these a try for some relief before you go. I wanted to let you know that I created a set of empowering affirmations to help you feel strong, confident, and magnetic every single day. These affirmations will remind you of your worth, your power, and your glow, so you can show up as your most radiant self. It is just six minutes and you can listen to it in the morning to start your day off right, or even if you've just hit a wall in your day, you will quickly be reminded of how amazing you are. You can grab them through the link in the show notes and the audio plus the written transcript will be immediately emailed to your inbox. Okay. Well, I hope this episode was helpful and as always, thanks for hanging out with me today. If you end up trying anything that I suggested here, please upload and share with me on Instagram and don't forget to tag. I would love to see any progress you've made at Nourished Living under. See you next time. Thanks for hanging out with me today and tuning into the Nourished Living Podcast. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and found something you can start implementing right away to kickstart your nourished transformation. If you loved this episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, or share it with someone who could benefit from these insights. You can also connect with me over on Instagram at Nourished Living for more resources and support. Until next time, stay nourished.