Are you notorious for rushing when you eat? This could look like grabbing something as you head out the door, eating at your desk on your lunch break, or maybe even eating dinner in front of the TV after a long day.
If this sounds like you, don’t worry, you’re not alone. So many of us get stuck in this habit of eating mindlessly, but what this means for our body is that it’s unable to properly digest our food! This can result in uncomfortable digestive systems like bloating, gas or heartburn.
So how do we start becoming more mindful when we eat?
Here’s a few tips:
Make the time to eat and enjoy your meal!
I know some days can be so busy it feels impossible to take even 10 minutes to stop and sit down to eat. This is one really simple way to ensure we can digest our food properly.
All this really means is to step away from the work desk, the TV, and any other tasks we’re doing and just focus on eating and enjoying our meal.
Simply taking the time to take in all the aspects of our meal – the smell, taste, texture – can help get your digestive system ready to digest your meal, helping you to avoid all those not-so-nice digestive symptoms we talked about before.
Chew your food!
I know this one seems obvious, but you’d be surprised how often we actually forget to chew our food properly.
The reason we have teeth is to chew and pulverise our food before it enters our stomach, and doing this properly is essential for good digestion. When we are in a rush, we most likely are not chewing our food as well as we should. This forces our stomach to work harder than it has to.
Taking the time to chew, chew, chew before we swallow our food can aid with the absorption of nutrients and will be a lot easier on our digestive systems!
Stop before you are full!
I get it. Sometimes food is just so good that you just want to keep going and going. However, eating to the point of being full can put a huge strain on our digestion! This is when we feel bloated, heavy, lethargic and we might feel the need to lie down for a minute (hello post Christmas lunch nap!). Ideally, it is better stop before you’re full. This will allow your body to break down the food you have eaten, without the uncomfortable feelings attached.
These are just a few tips on how to become more mindful when eating! Remember to slow down and make sure you’re taking your time to savour each and every bite, and really listen to your body when it’s telling you it’s had enough, and you and your digestive system will be feeling happy and satisfied!
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