Mindful & Intuitive Living + Eating
Mindfulness is the ability to see things as they are, free from judgment. It’s the space that’s created for loving, kindness, and compassion to occur. Mindfulness teaches change from the inside out, not the outside in, meaning we must see and understand what’s happening inside our minds and bodies to become fully aware.
Practicing mindfulness is a form of techniques that train our brain to function in a way that makes your life easier, healthier, and more enjoyable. Living mindfully enables us to experience reality more comfortably and constructively. Practicing mindfulness is similar to practicing any form of physical activity and comes with an array of benefits, including; Increased alertness, sharper thinking, deeper awareness, emotional resilience, improved mood and stronger concentration.
For many of us, time is in short supply and we’re always multitasking in a world that celebrates being crazy busy. We end up juggling large quantities of school work, projects, and community involvement. Once we realize what causes the demand on our time, it’s no surprise that eating healthy gets left behind. When we’re busy and stressed it’s hard to pay attention to what we’re consuming and how to become mindfully aware of our bodies.
In order to cultivate mindfulness we must become mindfully aware of what we’re doing. Our minds must be aligned with our actions, and we must simply become aware in order to further implement this into our daily routines. At the root of it all, we are caretakers of our bodies and we can eat with care knowing that our bodies don’t just belong to us, but they also belong to our ancestors, our parents, and our future generations. If we eat & live mindfully we can be at ease knowing we’re taking ultimate care of our bodies.
Live mindfully & Intuitively
“Health is not something that exists only in our bodies, separate from our lives. Rather, health is deeply intertwined with every aspect of our lives.”
What prevents us from eating mindfully?
Thinking while we eat & chewing our worries away: When we eat we usually think, however, we can enjoy our eating much more if we practice not thinking when we eat. Often we are just aware of the food, and sometimes we eat and we’re not even aware that we’re eating. Our mind isn’t focused on the moment and when our mind isn’t present we look, but we don’t truly see, or wee eat, but we don’t really taste. This is a state of forgetfulness, the lack of mindfulness that prevents us from truly eating mindfully. Often times when we eat we are thinking of our past or our future, and we’re hyper focused on something that’s causing worry or anxiety. We end up thinking too hard about something that isn’t going on in the present moment, and we’re unable to connect to the meal we’re eating. We must stop our thoughts of either our past or future, and instead bring awareness to the food we’re consuming in the present. Don’t chew away your worries, your fear, or your anger, cause if you chew away at your anxiety it’s hard to feel grateful for each bite of food you consume. You must turn off the conversation in your head and simply enjoy the food you’re eating.
Your past and future all depend on the present moment. What happens in the future can only be determined by what you’re doing in the present. The future is now.
8 practices to eating more mindfully
Organizing your meals: There are many people who are great at organizing, they’re ultra productive, they get a lot done and they’re on top of their work, however, they may forget to eat! If you don’t organize your day to include mindful meals, than you will never have the opportunity to nourish and heal your body properly. Organizing a meal requires scheduling time to eat without distractions or worry, and It’s important to plan a time after you’ve completed any stressful tasks. This may require you to send all your urgent emails before lunch, or make any stressful business calls before dinner, so you can ensure that whenever you eat, you’re eating in freedom.
Honor the food you eat: Many of us take the food we eat for granted. By bringing awareness to the food that we’re consuming, we begin noticing where our food comes from and the hard work that has gone into the food we’re eating. By Purchasing local produce we can bring mindful awareness to what we consume and we can understand the hard work that’s gone into the food we eat.
Engage all your senses: Amerce yourself in the aroma, texture, sound, and taste, to bring full awareness to what you’re eating. If you take a bite of a grapefruit, analyze what’s going on inside your mouth and mind so you can be mindfully present with each of your senses.
Be mindful of portion size: When you pay attention to your environment, your body, and your emotions, you can easily recognize signs that may lead to overeating. This goes back to understanding your internal and external triggers. Everything from visual cues, to cooking smells, to even social anxiety, can prompt us to eat more than we need to. Although, If we know how to recognize these triggers, we can reduce our portion size & eat more mindfully. Try using a smaller plate the next time you eat.
Chew thoroughly: As simple as this may sound, chewing our food properly is often times disregarded. When we eat in a rush, or we’re so starving we can’t help but inhale our food, we tend to under chew & overeat. But by chewing your food thoroughly you will not only be helping out your digestion, but also your ability to taste the unique flavors your food has to offer. We must slow down and properly chew our food in order to bring full awareness to the flavors and textures that are present.
Eat slowly: Once we truly slow down and take time to enjoy our food we can become aware of our community, and the loving work that has gone into our meal. When we eat slowly we’re not only helping out our conscious awareness, but also our digestive systems which helps us feel mentally & physically nourished.
Don’t skip meals: When you’re so hungry that you could eat your whole fridge, it’s hard to bring awareness to what you’re eating. You end up eating as fast as you can to fulfill your hunger without mindfully enjoying your meal. I recommend avoiding skipping meals if possible and eat when your hungry, not starving.
Eat a plant-based diet: When we eat food from a plant source, we can be at peace with ourselves knowing that we are sparing someones life. By eating plant-based we’re not only helping ourselves, but also animals, world hunger, and of course our climate. Eating plant-based may take time, but by implementing small changes every so often we’ll be able to bring full awareness around the food we eat. If we eliminate animal products, we become less selfish and more self-less.
How to recognize our internal + external triggers
Eating mindfully takes a lot of soul searching and determining the root cause of why you may not be eating mindfully; stress, loneliness, or anxiety could all be potential factors. Once you learn to truly pay attention to your environment, along with your body, thoughts, and your emotions-without judgement, it will be much easier to determine what’s causing your lack of mindfulness.
The mindful diet takes practice, but in order to achieve a mindful way of eating you must first understand your internal and external triggers. Your internal triggers consist of your thoughts and emotions, which are linked to your behavioral and thought patterns. By recognizing your internal triggers, you can become aware of your thoughts and how they’re part of your eating patterns. You may not be able to prevent a thought from occurring, but you can remember that a thought is just a mental event-not truth. Our minds constantly chatter, and much of what they say is not true.
Once you’ve determined your internal triggers, you must recognize your external triggers. An external trigger may be caused by passing your favorite cafe after work or school, which often times can trigger a desire or craving. Avoidance of the trigger can be effective, however, this only serves as a short-term alternative. Avoiding external triggers isn’t always possible or realistic, but even small changes and recognition within your patterns have powerful effects toward mindful eating.
When we finally understand our internal and external triggers, we are able to fully pay attention to why and how we eat. It’s important to build a way of eating that truly supports your health. Our bodies are a biochemical environment that is deeply affected by what we eat and drink. Your body knows the difference between a handful of nuts and a bag of chips, or a homemade veggie stir-fry and a frozen pizza. This is because the nutrients we take in, whether that be antioxidants or preservatives, ultimately goes over our DNA and interacts with our bodies cells. Over time what you eat and drink either supports or distorts the healthy functioning of our bodies systems.
Mindfulness influences our emotional intelligence
The main practice of mindfulness is meditation, which conditions our minds to become more aware of our surroundings and our bodies, in a less judgmental way. Practicing meditation influences our brain by increasing the mass region of our brain associated with emotional intelligence.
Emotional intelligence (EQ) consists of six elements; self-awareness, self-control, social awareness, social management, attention, and outlook. By practicing meditation, we’re not only enhancing our mindfulness, but we’re also increasing our emotional intelligence. You may even notice that you no longer get easily disturbed or angry since your attention and self-awareness are increased.
Relaxation + Oxygen consumption in our brains:
The region of your brain that’s affected by relaxation is associated with attention & self-control, which allows for increased brain activity. When you sleep for six hours you’re relaxing, but compared to doing twenty minutes of meditation, the oxygen consumption levels go down to the same level as when you slept for six hours. So technically you’re deeply relaxed while meditating.
The carbon dioxide level in your brain increases when you do twenty minutes of meditation daily. Increased carbon dioxide levels in your brain stimulates your brain cells, causing your brain to produce serotonin. When serotonin is released we become less stressed and far more happy & relaxed. We gain better self-control and attention skills through mindful meditation and this further enables us to eat a more mindfully.
References:
Hanh, Thich N. How To Eat. (Place of publication not identified), Parallax Press, 2004. Print.
Hanh, Thich N. How To Relax. London: Rider books, 2015. Print.
David, Deborah S. and David Panakkal. Living Mindfully: At home, at work, and in the world. Somerville, MA: Wisdom, 2015. Print.
Wolever, Ruth. The Mindful diet. (Place of publication not identified), Atlantic Books, 2015. Print.