Mindful Eating: How to Make It Work for You
You may have heard of mindful eating in the last few months. The “not-a-diet” dietary practice, which involves cultivating conscious awareness around the act of eating, has received attention recently for its potential as a weight control strategy.
What Is Mindful Eating?
Inspired by Buddhist teachings, mindful eating is the act of applying the principles of mindfulness — calm moment-to-moment, distraction-free awareness — to eating. No talking. No computer. No smart phone. No reading. In the practice of mindful eating, it’s encouraged to explore the various textures and flavors of your food and to contemplate where your food came from and how it was made. Some like to consider it food meditation.
Mindful Eating Benefits
Research on mindful eating has revealed that by shutting out secondary noise and/or activity, the human brain is capable of doing extraordinary things with regards to food consumption and selection.Here are some of the benefits of mindful eating:
1) Reduced caloric intake: When enough food is consumed to satisfy the body’s need for energy, a hormone called cholecystokinin (also known as CCK) is released by the digestive system to signal that eating should stop. Trouble is, CCK moves slowly, taking up to 20 minutes to relay the message to the brain. By the time the brain receives the “I’m full” signal, most Americans have already plowed through a second serving, over consuming foods that may or may not have contained the nutrients their bodies needed. Conversely, when eating mindfully, people tend to eat more slowly and deliberately. They are more in-tune with their bodies’ needs and less likely to over indulge. Reduced caloric intake is one byproduct of mindful eating that nutrition experts like Dr. Lilian Cheung of Harvard’s School of Public Health are particularly excited about.
2) Better control of cravings: In a study published in May of 2010, mindful eating helped to significantly reduce cravings among study participants. The theory is that when the participants became thoughtful rather than reactive with regards to cravings, they were better able breath their way to discovering the root of their cravings, negotiate with themselves and consider their choices.
Dr. Lilian Cheung, who co-authored Savor: Mindful Eating, Mindful Life with Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, explain in a New York Times article, “Thich Nhat Hanh often talks about our craving being like a crying baby who is trying to draw our attention. When the baby cries, the mother cradles the baby to try to calm the baby right away. By acknowledging and embracing our cravings through a few breaths, we can stop our autopilot of reaching out to the pint of ice cream or the bag of chips.”
3) Greater respect for food and nourishment: The practice of mindful eating encourages focusing thoughts on the food being eaten; how it feels, how it tastes, where it came from, what nutrients it contains and what those nutrients will do for your body. By channeling thoughts towards the benefits of certain foods, one is more likely to feel connected to it and, thus, make more wholesome food choices.
4) Enhanced sensory stimulation: Sensory compensation theorizes that when one of our five primary senses is turned off, the other senses become heightened, making them more powerful and keen to details. When taste is left to be the primary sense in use, the details registered by the human brain intensify the sensory experience, making the simple act of eating rather euphoric. This is why it is common to observe wine enthusiasts, chefs and food critics closing their eyes and chewing slowly when they are tasting. By sitting and eating without visual or auditory stimulation, the brain/body connection is strengthened. But this, of course, presents us with the greatest challenge.
The Challenge
Despite being a primary physiological need, eating is often a secondary act. In America, we look at eating as a very social activity; we meet friends for brunch, have meetings over lunch and meet our families to discuss our days over dinner. If eating isn’t done socially, it’s often done in front of the TV or in a hurry. (Shamefully, even as I write this I am intermittently taking bites of my lunch.) It is rare for us to take time out of our day to just sit — and eat.
So how do we break these habits and become better connected with the food nourishing our bodies? As with many mindful aspirations, we start with baby steps, says Dr. Jan Chozen Bays, a pediatrician, meditation teacher and the author of Mindful Eating: A Guide to Rediscovering a Healthy and Joyful Relationship with Food.
How to Succeed
Dr. Bays suggests planning one meal a weak to be dedicated to mindful eating. No talking. No working. No TV. “It happens step by step,” she explains, “How about the first five minutes we eat, we just eat in silence and really enjoy our food?” She goes on to say that there are days she satisfies her mindfulness quota by stopping to take three mindful sips of tea, experiencing the bursts of flavor and texture, then getting back to work.
An article published in the New York Times last week offered some more helpful tips for mindful eating success:
WHEN YOU EAT, JUST EAT. Unplug the electronica. For now, at least, focus on the food.
CONSIDER SILENCE. Avoiding chatter for 30 minutes might be impossible in some families, especially with young children, but specialists suggest that greenhorns start with short periods of quiet.
TRY IT WEEKLY. Sometimes there’s no way to avoid wolfing down onion rings in your cubicle. But if you set aside one sit-down meal a week as an experiment in mindfulness, the insights may influence everything else you do.
PLANT A GARDEN, AND COOK. Anything that reconnects you with the process of creating food will magnify your mindfulness.
CHEW PATIENTLY. It’s not easy, but try to slow down, aiming for 25 to 30 chews for each mouthful.
USE FLOWERS AND CANDLES. Put them on the table before dinner. Rituals that create a serene environment help foster what one advocate calls “that moment of gratitude.”
FIND A BUDDHIST CONGREGATION where the members invite people in for a day of mindfulness. For New Yorkers, it’s an easy drive to the Blue Cliff Monastery, about 90 minutes north of the city: bluecliffmonastery.org/ on the Web.
Who Else Has Tried It?
In addition to the high-profile names advocating mindful eating such as Oprah and Kathy Freston, Google’s Executive Chef, Olivia Wu is aiming to bring the practice to the masses by incorporating it into the company culture with “mindful lunch hours.” Here’s a fantastic video of Thich Nhat Hanh’s visit to Google for their first mindful eating lesson.
Sources:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/08/dining/mindful-eating-as-food-for-thought.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
http://www.tcme.org/
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S019566631000365X
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