Now more than ever, people are invested in self-care. With a new and broader definition, we are looking for easy and effective ways to practise and prioritise taking care of ourselves.
One of the biggest aspects of self-care involves meditation and mindfulness. Mindfulness is an ancient practice based on Zen Buddhism; it involves increasing your awareness on being present in the current moment. You become intensely aware of how you’re feeling and living without interpretation, evaluation or judgement.
An important aspect of mindfulness is mindful eating, read on to learn all about mindful eating, including some of the best tips to help you practice it:
What Is Mindful Eating?
Mindful eating is an approach to food which considers paying attention and being mindful of our eating behaviours, environment without any evaluation or judgement. This encourages people to savour their experience with food and make more health-conscious choices with their food selections.
What Is Mindless Eating?
Mindless eating often occurs when the brain is distracted, and the person is unaware of how much food they’re consuming. It’s characterised by numerous factors including emotional eating and disinhibition (eating when you’re not hungry).
Benefits Of Mindful Eating
Learning your body’s hunger cues
When you are taking the time to listen to your body, eating when you’re hungry and stopping when you’re full; you start to learn your body’s hunger queues and identify when you are actually ready to eat. This can help reduce emotional eating and stress eating.
Better digestion
Mindful eating is associated with better digestion, this is because eating mindfully reduces stress eating, and overeating which can lead to improved digestion and less bloating.
May lead to weight loss
Although the main goal of mindful eating is not weight loss, eating mindfully often leads to a reduction in weight because you become aware of the amount of food you’re consuming, your hunger queues and the type of foods you eat.
Making better food choices
Being mindful is all about selecting the best foods for you, and that are the most beneficial to your health goals. Mindful eating provides a framework to help people eat better, more natural and whole foods. People who practice mindful eating also make better choices of foods, keeping in mind how foods make them feel afterwards.
Less stress!
Research suggests that mindful eating can reduce levels of stress hormones found in the body, which can lead to reduced feelings of stress; particularly stress around mealtimes and eating.
5 Steps to Mindful Eating
Step 1: Listen to your body’s signals
Listening to your body is one of the most essential and important aspects of mindful eating; knowing your body’s personal hunger signals is important. This involves eating when you feel hungry (rather than when you are feeling stressed or angry) and stopping whe you are full to avoid overeating.
Step 2: Slow down when eating
Allowing your body to catch up with your brain is important when you are trying to eat mindfully. Our body sends a signal when it’s full (satiation signal) almost 20 minutes after our brain which is the reason why we can eat for longer than we feel full. Some good ways to slow down include sitting down while eating, setting your fork down between bites and chewing for a few seconds longer.
Step 3: Pay more attention to your food
Have you ever thought about cultivating your senses when cooking or eating? Take some time to pay attention to your food, including how it smells, and identifying different tastes and flavours in your meals. Also consider being mindful when cooking, as it can be a really good way to focus on what you’re doing and practice mindfulness.
Step 4: Set time out to eat
Nowadays, most people have their meals on the go, whilst watching TV or even in the car. But part of practicing mindful eating is setting a specific time of day to eat, setting your table and using cutlery (rather than eating out of a takeaway box) is also an easy way to practise mindfulness within your meals.
Step 5: Choose your meals wisely
Mindful eating also involves choosing what foods to eat and taking note of what your body needs at the time, and how much you should be having. Opting for wholefoods, and nutrient dense meal is a great first step to mindful eating.
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Take Home Message
Mindful eating is the practise of eating mindfully, by choosing what to eat and when. Some of the best tips for mindful eating include sharing your meals, setting mealtimes and slowing down when chewing.
FAQs
What is the difference between mindful eating and mindless eating?
Mindful eating is when you are actively aware of the food you are consuming, the environment around you and are actively choosing what to eat, listening to your body. Meanwhile mindless eating is when you are unaware of the amount of food you are eating and are distracted whilst eating.
What are some tips for mindful eating?
The most important tip for mindful eating is being patient with yourself, although mindful eating seems easy, it requires lots of practice to build a habit. Other tips include sharing your mealtimes with others and eating slower.
What are some good mindful eating habits?
Some good mindful eating habits include eating slowly, chewing longer and setting regular times to have your meals.
What are the benefits of mindful eating?
Some of the benefits of mindful eating include reduced feelings of stress, improved digestion, weight loss, and better food choices.
