Over recent years there has been an increased awareness and encouragement to approach many aspects of life with ‘mindfulness’. The art of mindfulness (which includes awareness of our thoughts, behaviours, emotions, perceptions and actions) is also applied to food and is called ‘Mindful Eating’.
Mindful Eating includes having an awareness of how we plan our food intake, where we buy it, how we prepare it, how we eat its as well as having an awareness of what the food is doing in our bodies whilst we are eating and how it makes us feel emotionally.
The practice of Mindful Eating can for some, be a great way to control eating habits and indirectly, potentially include a number of health benefits.
Benefits of Mindful Eating
Mindful Eating is NOT a diet. It is a practice applied to the eating process to encourage a healthier relationship with food. There is limited research to demonstrate any real tangible health benefits but ultimately the intention of Mindful Eating includes:
- Empowering us to make informed decisions on what food we are buying and what it may or may not be doing to our bodies – it puts us in control of our choices
- By planning meals in advance, it can help us regulate our meal times and in turn may support better digestive processes
- By eating food slowly and more thoroughly we may be improving our digestion processes and supporting better absorption and detoxification processes in our body
- May have the potential to contribute towards healthy weight management and even weight loss as it encourages us to think about what and how much food we are putting into our bodies and question whether this is good or bad or if we even need it
How to Eat Mindfully
There are many methods taut can be incorporated into Mindful Eating. These include:
- Read the ingredients on packets to understand what you are potentially going to put into your body
- Make informed decisions on where you buy your food, (supermarkets, farmers markets, how far has the food travelled etc)
- Ensure you are eating because you are hungry and not because it is ‘lunch time’ or ‘because it is there’.
- Turn off electronic devices whilst you eat so that you are not distracted
- Before you start eating spend a couple of minutes taking some deep breaths to relax your body and allow you to focus on the meal
- Engage your senses – appreciate the colours and smells of the food, what your taste buds are experiencing when the food enters your mouth
- Eat slowly – chew each bite thoroughly until the food is soft and easy to swallow and put down your utensils between each bite to slow down the eating process
- Recognise when you are full and stop eating
- Enjoy every mouthful