What Happens When I Swallow?
The muscles of your throat act in the form of a ring when food passes into your throat. The food does not drop directly into your stomach. In other words, the action is not quite the same as when you drop a stone out of the window. When you do the latter, the stone hits the sidewalk or whatever is below at the time, with a smash. It would hardly do to have our food drop into the stomach, so the muscles of the throat are arranged to contract in rings which push or squeeze the food downward, and the food is passed from one ring of muscles to the other. It is just like pushing a ball down into the foot of a stocking that is apparently too small for it to drop down. You put the ball in the top of the stocking and then by making a ring of your fingers around the stocking you can push the ball down. When you swallow, you start the muscles of your throat to making these rings. The upper ring squeezes the food on to the ring below it and so on down to the stomach.