How Your Body Digests Food While You SLEEP

You fall asleep, but your digestive system never clocks out. It runs all night without you.

Digesting a meal takes many hours. So when you are unconscious and not chewing or thinking, what keeps the whole process moving?

Your gut has its own nervous system, a network of millions of neurons that runs on its own. While you sleep, it fires waves of muscle contractions called peristalsis, squeezing food steadily through your intestines. Your pancreas keeps releasing enzymes to break down fats and proteins, and between meals a slow cleanup wave sweeps leftover debris toward the exit. Meanwhile, trillions of bacteria ferment the fiber you ate, working for hours after you have gone to bed.

So digestion does not need you awake at all. The reason a heavy late dinner can disrupt your sleep is that this overnight machinery is still grinding away while you are trying to rest.

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