How to Eat Mindfully

Food is a huge part of everyone’s life, but how often do you pay attention to what and how you’re eating? For many of us, meals and snacks can become mindless experiences – something we do on autopilot while scrolling social media, watching TV, or just wolfing down food without really tasting it. 

 But mindless eating doesn’t just rob you of enjoying your food. It also disconnects you from your body’s natural hunger and fullness cues. Over time, this can lead to issues like overeating, food cravings, and poor nutrition choices that take a toll on your physical and mental health.

 The practice of mindful eating is the antidote. It’s all about using your senses to experience food more deeply, while also tuning into the wisdom of your body’s signals to guide you on what, when and how much to eat.

 Reasons to Try Mindful Eating

Eating mindfully helps you become more aware of your body’s natural rhythms and needs when it comes to food and nourishment. It makes you more attuned to real, physical hunger rather than just eating out of habit, boredom or sadness.

Mindful eating has been shown to curb cycles of binge eating, cravings, and emotional eating by helping you recognise true hunger and fullness. And, it guides you to make food choices that genuinely nourish and satisfy you, rather than scarfing something down mindlessly only to feel a bit gross afterwards.

Becoming more mindful about food can help you regulate your energy levels in a more balanced way throughout the day, and may even improve your digestion. 

Tuning into your body’s needs empowers you to nourish yourself in a way that supports your mental health, focus, and overall wellbeing.

 How to Practice Mindful Eating

So, what does mindful eating actually look like? Here are some simple tips to help you get started.

1 Tune into Hunger Cues

Before you eat, take a breath and mentally scan your body. Are you experiencing physical hunger signals like a growling stomach, physical feelings of emptiness, low energy, or trouble focusing? Or is your desire to eat coming from emotions like stress, sadness or loneliness? 

Getting in touch with your body’s true needs can help you decide if you are actually hungry.

2 Remove Distractions

During your meal or snack, turn off screens or music, and just focus on the act of eating. Notice the smell, taste and texture of your food. Chew slowly and savour each bite.

3 Think About Fullness

As you eat, periodically pause and check in with your belly. Do you feel full or energised? Are you starting to feel overly full or weighed down? If you can pay attention to the early signals of fullness, you may be able to stop yourself from overeating.

4 Engage Your Senses

Notice the flavours, colours, textures and aromas of your food. You may be surprised by how much you notice when you start being fully present at mealtimes. Let yourself enjoy the whole experience.

5 Try the Raisin Exercise

If you found it hard to engage your senses in  point 4 above, you may find the raisin exercise helpful. This is a classic mindfulness exercise that helps train awareness of hunger and satisfaction when eating. 

Take a single raisin or similar food and use your senses fully to experience it one step at a time. 

First, examine its texture, colour and aroma. Roll it between your fingers and pay attention to how it feels – is it hard, soft, smooth or rough? Next, place it into your mouth but don’t chew it yet. Explore how it feels on your tongue. Finally, take one mindful bite at a time, experiencing the bursts of flavour. Go slowly, staying present with the sensations of taste. 

This builds your sensitivity so that it becomes easier to engage your senses when eating.

6 Appreciate Your Food

As you eat, take a moment to think about where your meal came from and the work it took to grow the fruit or veg, prepare the meal, and get it to your plate. Whether these steps were taken by you or someone else, practising gratitude can help you feel more thankful for your meal, leading to greater overall enjoyment. 

Final Thoughts

To eat mindfully, we need to slow our mealtime experiences down. This allows us to turn them into a purposeful practice of checking in with ourselves rather than mindlessly putting food into our bodies. Over time, it will help you recognise your own personal hunger and fullness cycles.

Mindful eating empowers you to make more nutritious, satisfying, nourishing choices so that you can enjoy a healthier relationship with food overall.