How Mindful Eating Can Help Reduce Automatic and Emotional Eating

Sometimes, different emotions and situations trigger automatic and emotional eating. The American Society for Nutrition stresses the importance of mindful eating to counter these unhealthy eating habits. Incorporating this concept into your eating habits can help you maintain a healthier body. Here are the details about how mindful eating can help minimize your automatic and emotional eating.           

What Mindful Eating Is

This better perception of eating can help manage your food cravings and improve your diet. It can also help you shed some pounds. Mindful eating has Buddhist roots. It is a form of meditation that allows you to identify and manage your physical sensations and emotions. 

Research shows that mindfulness can treat anxiety, depression, and eating disorders. This type of eating lets you forget about automatic and emotional eating. Mindful eating’s basics include the following:
 

• Appreciation for food

• Eating with focus

• Seeing the effects of food on your body and feelings

• Eating until full

• Listening to hunger signals

• Eating for your health and well-being

• Recognizing the difference between non-hunger and hunger triggers

• Coping with anxiety and guilt about food

• Stimulating your senses by appreciating flavors, colors, sounds, smells, and textures

When you practice mindful eating, you are aware of what you drink and eat. You take the time to observe how these substances make you feel. You should see how they make your body full and content. Mindful eating prevents you from judging how you feel and think while you eat. This attitude can extend to how you buy, prepare, serve, and consume your food. 

Mindless or automatic eating is common, especially if you are busy or engaged in watching something you like. This happens when you keep putting food in your mouth even if you are already full. There is also emotional eating, which aims to cope with stress and negative feelings. Studies reveal that this type of eating can also aim to satisfy certain emotional needs. 

Mindful eating does not mean you are going to deprive yourself. It does not make you count your calories or choose which foods you should eat. This form of eating is about centering your senses. You must be present while you buy, prepare, present, and consume your food. 

This type of eating is not for everyone. People who practice it discover that they become more attentive to their bodies. Because of this, they avoid overeating. If you start mindful eating, you can improve your well-being and eating habits.

The Benefits

Concentrating on your feelings ad sensations while you eat allows you to see how your food affects your mood and energy. Mindful eating motivates you to savor your food and the experience of eating. Here are some of the benefits of this eating method:
 

• It helps you eat with more balance

• It makes you feel full right away

• It helps ease your stress

• It allows you to connect with your food

• It improves your digestion

• It connects you to your food

• It leads to better digestion 

Mindful eating could be the answer to the dietary issues that you might have. At ReAlignMed, we help our patients achieve better health and wellness after their treatments. Feel free to drop by our facility in Chicago, Illinois, for an in-person consultation. Please call 773-917-0900 to set an appointment or ask how our mindful eating sessions can change lives.