★★★★★
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.
