On Oct. 14th, 2001 CNN published a report to say that mindful eating is desirable. Many people watch television while they eat a meal. This is a big no-no, because you are not concentrating fully on the TV show, and you are also not concentrating on your meal. With mindful eating you switch the TV off and concentrate on the flavors and the colors of your food. You also notice the temperature of the food and enjoy it slowly while you chew your food very well. Mindful eating is desirable: it means that you experience the enjoyment of your meal.
Eating your breakfast mindfully
Here is an example how to enjoy your breakfast the mindful eating way. Teresa T. Fung is a professor and director of the Didactic Program in Dietetics at Simmons University in Boston. But she is also adjunct professor of nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She gave an example of how to enjoy breakfast
- When you sit down for breakfast you don’t hold your iPad and you don’t read the morning news.
- You also don’t read your emails while you eat.
- You just sit quietly in a comfortable place like on a couch. It does not have to be at the dining room table.
- You enjoy the sound of the coffee brewing. You pay attention to the scent of the coffee. Your mind may want to wander to the people far away who grew and processed the coffee.
More mindful coffee drinking
- You observe the color of your coffee, the perfect blend between the coffee and the cream. I like to sweeten my coffee with stevia extract, but you may instead prefer sugar or nothing.
- You focus on the temperature of the coffee in your mouth. Does it feel as warm as the coffee cup in your hand?
- When you sip the coffee concentrate mentally on the flavor of it.
- Enjoy the other parts of your breakfast similarly to your breakfast coffee and you have completed eating your breakfast mindfully.
Mindful living
When you ate for some time with this mindful eating method, you can branch out into other areas of your life. This is about mindful living and doing one thing at a time. You avoid doing things by multitasking. This way you enjoy doing one thing at a time. And you do things with a full awareness. So, you check your emails now, then you watch TV. After that you may want to go for a walk.
Mindful Eating is Desirable
Conclusion
Mindful eating is desirable. Many people multitask while they eat, like watching TV or reading their emails while eating a meal. Doing this does not give us time to relax, enjoy and appreciate our food. Eating this way just means a continuation of a frenzied lifestyle. But Dr. Teresa Fung says that mindful eating is desirable. Concentrate on doing one thing at a time and focus all your senses on what you are doing. This way you do mindful eating. Not only do you appreciate your food in every detail, but this approach branches out into the rest of your live and helps you to achieve mindful living.
