Gastroesophageal reflux occurs in almost all patients because esophageal cancer surgery requires removal of the cardia and because the change in the structure of the digestive tract renders the original anti-reflux mechanism ineffective. Refluxed gastric acid may induce serious lung infections if it leads to aspiration into the lungs. Reflux may be increased when lying down and bending over, so many people say that postoperative patients with esophageal cancer should never lie down or even bend over! This sounds reasonable, but is it really feasible? Can a person really not lie flat or bend over at all? If one can lie flatter, how many degrees of slope should the sloped lying position be? If one can bend at the waist, how many degrees can one bend at the waist? For the first two questions, the answers are of course negative. It is true that every patient has gastroesophageal reflux after esophageal cancer surgery, but in fact, the degree of reflux is different in every patient. Some patients are more serious and have obvious acid reflux when slightly lying down and bending over, but some patients may also have no performance when lying down and bending over. Therefore, a uniform standard should not be applied to everyone. A red line should not be drawn in advance for the patient and the patient should not be allowed to step beyond it. Patients should be allowed to make gradual attempts to find the most suitable angle of reclining and degree of bending for themselves, so as to maximize the possibility of improving the patient’s postoperative quality of life and avoiding risks. Therefore, for the latter two issues, specifically, patients can gradually lower the angle of the head of the bed and increase the bending angle when their condition is stable, and if no aggravation of acid reflux is detected, after a period of time, they can try to further lower the head of the bed and increase the bending angle until they feel that their acid reflux is aggravated. In this way, treatment and rehabilitation can be individualized to achieve the best quality of life after surgery.