@mollypelletier.rd: Watch what happens to your LES when you breathe like this. Reflux clusters in the hour after eating for a reason that is mechanical, and once you see it the timing of this practice makes sense. Your anti-reflux barrier runs on a pressure difference. Stomach pressure on one side, valve pressure on the other. As long as the valve side stays higher, contents stay down. When you eat, the stomach fills and the pressure on that side climbs. In the Mayo Clinic trial below, stomach pressure after a meal measured 12 mmHg in reflux patients against 7 in healthy controls. You have direct control over the valve side of that equation. That is what the breathing is for. Wrapped around your LES is the crural diaphragm, the part of your breathing muscle that forms the outer ring of that valve. It is skeletal muscle, the same kind of tissue as your bicep, and it tightens around the junction every time you inhale. In that same trial, LES pressure during the inspiratory portion of diaphragmatic breathing measured 42.2 mmHg against 23.1 without it, reflux events after eating fell from 2.60 to 0.36, and acid exposure in the two hours after the meal dropped by more than half (Halland et al. 2021, Am J Gastroenterol, PMID 33009052). So the timing is the mechanism. You are adding pressure to the valve at the moment the stomach is pushing hardest against it. Here is what I teach my clients. The LES Lock: 1 to 5 minutes of diaphragmatic breathing with 360 ribcage expansion, immediately after meals, up to 5x daily. Inhale wide, ribs opening front, sides and back. Exhale slower than you inhaled. Rest one hand on your side ribs and feel them widen under your palm, that is how you know you have it. Four weeks of this in a separate randomized trial cut time spent with esophageal pH under 4 from 9.1% of the day to 4.7%, with no change in the control group (Eherer et al. 2012, Am J Gastroenterol, PMID 22146488). Check the link in my bio for more breathing exercises. Follow for more, and send this to whoever eats standing at the counter. 💚 Small hinges swing big doors. 🌿 #AcidReflux #GERD #DiaphragmaticBreathing #GutHealth #RefluxRelief

Molly | The Reflux Dietitian

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Wednesday 09 September 2026 15:51:18 GMT