Susan (Vancouver, Canada) on 09/29/2012
Per Ted's Post
Baking soda is ideally taken before bedtime, but also ideally after lunch one to two hours, and after dinner one hours. It is never to be taken before 12 pm or early morning, although it can be used as a toothpaste substitute for most fluoridated toothpastes. Ted""
Replied By Bill (San Fernando, Philippines) on 09/29/2012
Your post was a little unclear so I will assume that you are a night worker(you didn't mention this) and that you go to bed for eight hours in the morning when you get back from your night work. When you go to sleep for 8 hrs in the morning then this is when your body goes into repair mode(which is exactly what occurs if you go to sleep for 8 hours at night) -- this is when your body tries to readjust your pH to healthy levels again. So, in this instance, taking sodium bicabonate and water an hour before your 8 hours sleep(in the morning) actually aids the body in the alkalizing readjustment process.
But if you were talking about going to sleep for just a quick hour's nap -- then no, this is not the same as 8 hours rem sleep that I've described above.
Replied By Diana (White Mountains, Nh, USA) on 09/30/2012
Replied By Susan (New York) on 09/30/2012
Replied By Bill (San Fernando, Philippines) on 10/01/2012
Later, I understood that taking sodium bicarb and water outside mealtimes was good for alkalizing both the intestines and the body. However now, I take sodium bicarb and water about 1/2 hr to 1 hour after meals -- because taking it this way helps to alkalize the intestines, alkalize the blood AND helps digestion issues because it supports main stage digestion in the upper intestines which should always occur in an alkaline to neutral medium(not acid).
Normally, during sleep at night, the body's homeostsis mechanism comes into play to re-adjust the body's pH(and electrochemistry) back to a healthy levels again. Since 90% of the food we eat now is acidic -- taking sodium bicarb in this way, an hour or so before sleep, actually helps the homeostasis mechanism to re-adjust the body's pH to healthy levels again.
What I have also noticed is that taking sodium bicarb at night also helps people with slow digestion ussues caused by GERD and other problems. Similarly, slow or poor digestion can also be caused by too little bicarbonates from the pancreatic juices -- so taking sodium bicarbonate an hour before you sleep actually helps to make digestion more efficient and helps to avoid acid intestines, reflux etc at night.
To keep it simple -- the only times when I would never take the sodium bicarb and water remedy would be directly before a meal, during a meal and directly after a meal ie while stomach acid digestion is still working and doing its job -- because taking thos remedy incorrectly like this during meals would adversely affect and interfere with both stomach acid digestion and main stage digestion in the duodenum.
Therefore Sodium bicarb is OK to take for constipation. But I've also found that if you add 1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon of sea salt(once a day) to the sodium bicarb and water and take it that way as Ted advises -- then this tend to work much better to help loosen up the constipation than just sodium bicarb and water alone.