ver the past few months, I’ve started noticing something strange at the end of each day. After eating dinner or enjoying a late-night snack and curling up on the couch to watch my K-dramas, belches come and go like waves. They’re not painful or sour, but they’re still frequent enough to make me wonder what the deal is. This situation eventually got me wondering whether my eating habits, night owl tendencies, or sparkling water intake could be the culprit… until I realized that since getting a new (exceedingly cozy) sofa, I've started to revel in my post-nosh TV marathons in a completely horizontal position.

On a mission to uncover what really happens to your digestion when you lie down after eating and how to best avoid the symptoms that can arise from doing so, I reached out to Peyton Berookim, MD, MA, FACG, AGAF, a double board-certified gastroenterologist at the Gastroenterology Institute of Southern California.

What happens in your digestive system when you lie down after eating?

If you can relate and also love going straight to sprawling out after dinner (or any meal—I see you, fam), Dr. Berookim says that while it's nothing to lose sleep over, there are a few things you should know about how your digestive function may be affected. “When you lie down after eating, there is a possibility that the food you just ingested—which has made its way through your esophagus and to the entrance of your stomach—will make its way backwards, now with some of the acids of the stomach, and up into your throat,” Dr. Berookim says. In other words, your digestive system makes like Missy Elliott circa 2002, flipping and reversing the natural flow of breaking down your food. When this happens, you may experience symptoms of heartburn and acid reflux.