Digestion
will continue whether you are awake or asleep - your gut doesn't need
to sleep and it regulates itself pretty much independently of what your
brain is doing. It might even be more efficient - when you are active
and moving around, digestion actually slows down as blood and resources
are shifted elsewhere (like the muscles). In a normal person,
positioning doesn't matter - the intestines are coiled in all sorts of
funny directions anyway so that they can fit inside of you. The stomach
and intestines have sphincters to close off their openings, and the
muscles in their walls can squeeze to move everything around where it
needs to go. Otherwise, animals that walk around horizontally or like to
hang upside down would never be able to digest anything. |