What can Mindfulness do for us?
Mindfulness allows us to experience life in a new way. It requires practice (both formal and informal) but with some dedication it can have a transformational effect on our eating, on our health and on other parts of our life. Also by being mindful of our thoughts and emotions, it can impact how we think, feel and show our selves compassion. These things may seem way beyond eating but are really central to it. Eating becomes a gateway to getting to know ourselves better, more deeply, more authentically. Mindfulness can help us bring eating into balance, but can balance other things in life that are important too.
So, rather than continue down the same path of mindlessly eating large amounts of food while being busy – doing or thinking about other things -not tasting or remembering much about what you ate, know you too can enjoy benefits of mindful eating – feel your hunger, trust your body and enhance the pleasure of your food. Become more deeply satisfied with what you eat, how much you eat, your food choices – and yourself. And that’s just the beginning. Mindful eating can empower you in ways that maybe hard to imagine. Join us on the mindfulness journey. It is worth a try.
12 benefits of mindful eating.
Mindfully eating, like anything we learn that’s new, requires practice but the rewards are many and can transform not just our eating, but our lives. Here are 12 reasons why.
Mindful eating helps us:
- Practice bringing our full attention to what we are eating and use our senses in a way that can end ‘unconscious’ and habitual eating.
- Become ‘aware’ of what, how and why we eat.
- Focus more on the process of eating so we see how we eat and why we eat. This is unlike a diet that concentrates on the outcome (the scales) by using external rules about what we eat.
- Become aware of thoughts, emotions, and body sensations. We watch how they arise around food and can trigger unwanted eating behaviors. Also how they can ‘feed’ off each other and begin to spiral us downwards.
- Sit with and learn ways of ‘accepting’ difficult thoughts or feelings so we don’t have to use food to avoid or distract ourselves from them.
- Develop our inner wisdom to: a) Listen to our body sensations to determine what, when, and how much to eat (not just eat what’s on the plate or what someone else has put before us) b) Recognise internal events such feelings or thoughts that drive emotional or unwanted eating.
- Develop outer wisdom: a) Identify social, environmental or cultural events or pressures that distract us or make us overeat. b) Discern reliable information that supports us, not ‘pop’ information that confuses us.
- Enhance the pleasure of food and rekindle the simple joys of eating.
- Encourage a greater sense of awareness that allows us to respond in new ways to food not habitually react.
- Change our attitudes and improve our relationship with food and ourselves. Attitudinal foundations such as curiosity can replace guilt. Compassion can replace shame.
- Stay ‘present’ and not get lost in thoughts or mindlessly eat without even noticing.
- Feel a new sense of control as we learn to trust ourselves more. We’re empowered to act more from a place of wisdom than by taking notice of the latest food fads.