10 Days to Thrive with Mindfulness – Day TWO
Welcome to Day Two of our 10 day challenge – Mindfulness
It’s day two! How did you get on yesterday increasing your water intake? Keep it up today and each day will get easier as you start to reap the benefits. Take a moment to reflect on how you feel today. It’ll become more natural as the 10 days goes on.
Today is all about Mindfulness and Mindful Eating.
Ever gone to the bank this time of year – what do they have – tubs of sweets just sitting there for our hands to take one without thinking!
And is our mind ever at rest?
When was the last time you ate a meal without multitasking?
Today’s challenge is to practise mindfulness specifically while eating a meal and snack.
During the past 20 years, studies have found that mindful eating can help you to reduce overeating and binge eating, lose weight and reduce your body mass index (BMI) and improve the symptoms of Type 2 diabetes. Mindful eating slows you down, makes you more aware of portion sizes and helps you get out of negative, automatic food habits like overeating while watching your favourite TV show.
At this time of year it is easy to slip into eating “bad” food. But actually most of us don’t even get a chance to enjoy the sensation of eating. We’re in such a rush, or distracted, or stressed. So today we simply challenge you to focus on your food without any other distractions (like work or screens).
Start small. Perhaps today you will put away your cell phone and be more engaged with what you are doing. Enjoy the fruit cake, the toffee sweet, the hot coffee. Remember it’s easy to eat an entire plate of food and not actually taste one bite. Eat and drink mindfully today so you get every pleasure from it. Don’t stuff it down, ladened with guilt that you “shouldn’t” be having it. Let that go. Today is about embracing all our senses, savouring every morsal, slowing down, breathing and enjoying what you are eating, without judgement and mindfully.
Mindfulness when Eating – today’s challenge
- Set aside time to sit down to have one meal of your choice mindfully today.
- While preparing your meal, how are you feeling about the food in front of you?
- Appreciate that you are eating to nourish your body
- Ask yourself, how does my body feel now, before I eat?
- Feast your eyes on the colours
- Smell the food, does it make your mouth water?
- Appreciate, taste and savour each bite
- How does the food taste in your mouth?
- Eat until you are satisfied
- Ask yourself, how does my body feel now, after I have eaten?
- Breathe ….. and get on with your day ….
When you eat in a relaxed state and CHEW each mouthful, this improves the body’s ability to absorb vital nutrients. If you’re stressed it’s probably best not to eat at all! Stress shuts down the digestive process. Get rid of all distractions so you can pay attention to what you’re eating, so that you know you’ve eaten, you know how much you’ve eaten, and you can enjoy the experience. So eat light, breathe, and take 5 minutes.
