Understanding the Power of Mindful Eating
A Path to Health and Well-Being
Life moves fast in modern society. Multitasking isn’t just a skill anymore. It’s become a necessity. Modern technology and advancements make people accomplish more tasks faster than previous generations. This isn’t just regarding work or school, but life as a whole.
Along with the need to multitask, we always seem to need to be entertained. Convenience tends to trump mindfulness. Our multitasking, entertainment-seeking culture seeps into everything from being with our families, exercising, being outdoors, “relaxing” at home, and last but not least– eating.
When did you last enjoy a meal alone without listening to a podcast, looking at your phone, the TV, or a book? How often do you sit in the moment and enjoy your food without distractions, savoring each bite? At least for me, this doesn’t happen very often.
Let’s dive into mindful eating and how it can foster self-awareness, weight loss, improved mental health, and overall well-being.
How Do I Use “Mindfulness” While Eating?
Mindfulness is a term defined by Jon Kabat-Zinn as “paying attention in a particular way, on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally.” This is a practice based on Zen Buddhism and is now a popular method of being more self-aware.
Mindfulness is judgment-free awareness of your thoughts, feelings, and body. Two popular mindfulness exercises are meditation and mindful eating. Being mindful while eating isn’t all that difficult. Mindful eating is practicing awareness while eating and focusing on the food and mind-body relationship. It may take a few times to get the hang of it, but the concept isn’t complicated.
To put it simply, practicing mindfulness while eating requires you, some food, and a distraction-free environment.
Meal Meditation
Meditation is defined as “to focus one’s thoughts on” or “reflect on or ponder over.”
Think of mindful eating as meal meditation. Sure, it’s a dynamic form of meditation, but it’s still meditation. Eating mindfully involves channeling your focus and thoughts on your food and physical presence. How does the food make you feel? Maybe you wonder where your food came from. Can you savor all the flavors in each bite?
I have a hard time using traditional meditation with deep breathing and yoga poses. Keeping my mind clear when I’m stagnant in a quiet environment is challenging. So, practicing mindful eating gives me something simple but significant to focus on while grounding myself.
Health Benefits of Mindful Eating
Mindfulness on its own has psychological and physiological advantages. Practicing mindful eating can lead to all sorts of health benefits as well. It can encourage a healthier relationship with food, which may reduce emotional eating tendencies. Forging a stronger connection with the body, mind, and food also promotes self-awareness and sustainable eating habits. Last but not least, digestion and nutrient absorption are improved when practicing mindful eating, leading to better gut health.
Digestive Health
Staying mindful while eating has been known to improve dining patterns. Mindful eating fosters a deeper connection between food and the body, making the person more aware of hunger cues versus emotional cues. Being more aware of body signals can help someone determine if they are physically hungry or experiencing stress, boredom, or fatigue, which often encourages emotional eating habits.
When staying in tune with natural signals for hunger and cravings, you may prefer higher-quality foods after a while. This leads to smaller portions, increased fruit and vegetable intake, and less consumption of nonnutritious foods.
Weight Loss
In a journal published by the American Diabetes Association, one article discusses how mindful eating focuses more on the process and less on the outcome. I particularly like this idea because it acknowledges that mindful eating is a long-term practice with long-term effects. This approach to diet emphasizes behaviors and individual experiences rather than food restrictions and strict calorie intake rules. This article stresses that the purpose of mindful eating has little to do with macronutrients and direct weight loss. That being said, it’s likely that those who practice mindful eating regularly will shed some weight.
In an issue of Nutrition Research Review published online by the Cambridge University Press, another article reveals how mindfulness and mindful eating decrease emotional eating, which can contribute to obesity. The article makes a point to discuss how mindful eating doesn’t necessarily guarantee weight loss but can help prevent weight gain. This review concludes that mindfulness and mindful eating led to improved eating habits.
Mental Health
Mindful eating encourages self-awareness. As mentioned above, mindful eating can be practiced as a form of meditation. Being self-aware while eating grounds the person and allows them to be present in the moment.
Studies have shown that mindful eating can help with body image concerns and encourage body appreciation instead. Implementing this practice into meal times could benefit mental health by promoting sustainability and healing emotional roadblocks that may contribute to unhealthy diet practices.
Ultimately, mindful eating empowers people to savor the moment, reduce stress, and improve mental and emotional health.
Sleep Quality
Research shows that practicing mindfulness can improve sleep quality and insomnia. Multiple studies have shown that mindfulness interventions, like meditation or mindful eating, enhance sleep quality. In another study, participants who practiced mindfulness had better sleep quality compared to the sleep hygiene education group participants.
Incorporating mindful eating into daily life could reduce late-night snacking habits, emotional eating, and binge eating before bed. (Binge eating is the act of excessively or compulsively eating food.) Also, practicing mindfulness has been shown to reduce stress and anxiety, which can improve sleep quality.
Improved Mood
Over time, as you experience the positive effects of mindful eating, it makes sense that you would start to feel better overall. Mindfulness improves mood and emotion, reducing stress, anxiety, and depressive symptoms. Mindful eating encourages a positive dining experience that uplifts your mood and promotes a more serene relationship with meals.
Other Benefits of Mindful Eating
You may have other motivators to practice mindful eating. Perhaps you have no problem with your body image or emotional eating. Maybe the foods you eat are nutritious, and you don’t tend to overeat.
The beautiful thing about mindful eating is that there are other benefits to it. You can enhance your overall well-being by tuning into the sensory experience of each bite. Two other benefits that mindful eating offers are improved financial well-being and sustainability.
Financial Well-Being
This is something I’ve noticed with myself, not something I found solid research-backed evidence on. As someone who practices mindful eating, I don’t eat as much as I used to. I feel fuller a lot sooner, and I don’t feel the need to get a second serving or dessert all the time. The foods I eat are often higher quality than fast food. Yes, fast food is cheaper than some healthier options. But higher-quality foods tend to make me feel fuller for longer, whereas “junk” foods only satisfy cravings for a short period. So — eating slower, eating a little bit less, and eating healthier has resulted in me spending less money on food.
Sustainability
Mindful eating is sustainable for the environment and a sustainable mealtime practice for people. As mentioned before, mindful eating is a behavior-based practice, not a food-restriction diet. By focusing on behaviors and emotions while also improving digestive health, mindful eating may have longer-lasting effects than other “diets” would.
Being mindful of your food promotes appreciation for where it came from, who grew it, and how it got to your plate. Mindful eating supports sustainable and ethical consumption while having long-term positive health benefits.
Mindful Eating Exercises
There are so many different mindfulness exercises out there. Some easy mindful eating exercises I use at home (and you can too) are:
- Get rid of distractions. When you sit down to eat, clear off the table. Try to put any books, your phone, laptop, etc., somewhere else while you eat. If you can, make it just you and the plate of food.
- Before you take your first bite, look at your food. Notice the colors, the smells, the shape, and the texture.
- Put your utensil down after you take your first bite. Try to chew and savor that bite for about 20 seconds. Notice the texture and taste.
- When you finish your meal, wait 20 minutes until you get a second serving. After 20 minutes, you can ask yourself if you’re still hungry. Don’t ask yourself if you’re full — ask yourself if you’re satisfied. You want to feel comfortable and nourished after a meal.
- Journal about each meal afterward. What did you notice? Appreciate? Dislike?
Summary
In our fast-paced world, forgetting the little things is easy. Mindful eating is one easy way you can take a minute to slow down and appreciate your mind, your body, and your food. You can practice mindful eating by being self-aware during meals and paying close attention to the eating experience. This includes noticing taste, texture, color, and smell and being more aware of hunger and fullness cues. There are a handful of reasons why someone would practice mindful eating. It’s a zero-cost way of improving your relationship with food, mental well-being, and weight management. Mindful eating is also beneficial because it enhances digestion and overeating habits, reduces stress, and offers a sustainable alternative to low-quality foods and calorie-restricting diets.
References
Böhme, T., Stanszus, L. S., Geiger, S. M., Fischer, D., & Schrader, U. (2018). Mindfulness Training at School: A Way to Engage Adolescents with Sustainable Consumption? Sustainability, 10(10), 3557. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10103557
Cherpak, C. E. (2019). Mindful Eating: A Review Of How The Stress-Digestion-Mindfulness Triad May Modulate And Improve Gastrointestinal And Digestive Function. Integrative Medicine: A Clinician’s Journal, 18(4), 48–53. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7219460/
MacLeod, S., Musich, S., Kraemer, S., & Wicker, E. (2018). Practical non-pharmacological intervention approaches for sleep problems among older adults. Geriatric Nursing, 39(5), 506–512. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gerinurse.2018.02.002
Maryniuk, M. (2017) From pyramids to plates to patterns: Perspectives on meal planning. Diabetes Spectrum: A Publication of the American Diabetes Association, 30(2), 67–70. https://doi.org/10.2337/ds16-0080
Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Binge eating. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved September 26, 2023, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/binge%20eating
Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Meditate. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved September 25, 2023, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/meditate
Nelson, J. B. (2017). Mindful eating: The art of presence while you eat. Diabetes Spectrum: A Publication of the American Diabetes Association, 30(3), 171–174. https://doi.org/10.2337/ds17-0015
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5556586/
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