The Mindful Eater
Why the way we eat matters as much as what we eat.
The concept of eating mindfully can be challenging to understand as there are a variety of ways to do so. This could mean being aware during the act of eating, choosing healthy foods, meditating while eating—all fit the definition of mindful eating in some way. However, the bigger picture of mindful eating is much more profound as it aligns eating behavior with biochemical and physiological needs. Mindful eating is not an esoteric, spiritual concept. It’s science and it applies to everyone.
So, what does eating in alignment with our biochemical and physiological needs looks like? While mindful eating does indirectly influence what we eat, the focus is on how and why we eat.
Digestion is a Symphony
The digestive system, also known as the gastrointestinal tract or gut, takes up the largest surface area of the body. It is home to the highest number of immune cells, contains as many neurons as there are in the spinal cord, and is lined with cells that excrete a variety of hormones and neurotransmitters, including the largest concentration of serotonin in the body. Your gut is essentially your body’s largest sensory organ, constantly receiving input from the outside environment in the form of food and turning it into data your brain can interpret. The vast neural network in your gut is called the enteric nervous system, often referred to as the body’s “second brain.” Your gut is in a constant bidirectional communication flow with the brain. The implications of this are profound. What you eat, how you eat, and why you eat influence your mood, your decision-making, and your overall health, not just physically but psychologically, as well.
The digestive process starts as soon as you see and smell food. The sight and scent of food triggers a biochemical and mechanical cascade of events starting with salivation, all assisted by the central nervous system (primarily the brain and vagus nerve). Think about the last time you saw a big, juicy cheeseburger pop up on the tv screen. It made you hungry, right? That’s because advertisers use tactics designed to trigger your biological desire for food. When we see or smell tasty food, we begin to salivate, and this salivation results in the secretion of hunger inducing hormones, like ghrelin, one of the hunger hormones produced by the endocrine cells that line the gut.
Saliva contains digestive enzymes that act as the sonata opening of the digestive symphony. Digestive enzymes break down food chemically while mechanical digestion breaks down food physically, together turning food into a more digestible bolus called chyme. The process starts by chewing food into smaller pieces for chemical digestion. These digestive functions work symbiotically as food moves from the mouth to the stomach, where hydrochloric acid and other enzymes break down food. As food moves through the stomach to the small intestine, macronutrients are mechanically and chemically broken down into absorbable particles that, with the help of cellular transporters, enter the blood stream and travel to the liver for processing, packaging, and distribution to all tissues in the body. Similarly, micronutrients, like vitamins and minerals, are absorbed, transported, and utilized by all cells in the body. All of the complex ingredients of nature’s foods work symbiotically to enhance digestion, absorption, and, finally, utilization of one another.
Your gut is like an orchestra playing a beautiful symphony. The instruments need to be in tune, the musicians need to know their music, and the orchestra as a whole must be in sync for the music to transcend effectively. The same goes for our gut. In order to keep our orchestral parts working together, we must teach them how to eat, why to eat, and, of course, what to eat. The best way to do so is through mindful eating for optimal digestive health, creating a symbiotic relationship between eating habits, mood, and health. The information sharing between the brain and gut is bidirectional meaning it travels both ways, so our mood, our habits, and our mindset also affect our digestive health and vice versa. Let’s now explore one of the other fascinating aspects of our gut—the microbiome.
The Gut Biome
Only a small portion of cells that make up the body are human cells. In fact, human cells only cover about 10 percent of the picture from a cellular standpoint and 1 percent from a genetic standpoint. What the hell am I talking about when I say only 10 percent of the cells of our body are human cells? I’m talking about the hundreds of trillions of bacteria and their genes that makes up our body’s microbiome. This forgotten organ system has been thoroughly researched in the last two decades and is revealing a tremendous amount of information about the relationship between gut microbes and health. The gut alone is host to 100 trillion microbes of 1,000 varying species. They make up the gut microbiota and among them contain more than 7 million genes. That’s 360 bacterial genes for every one human gene. The diversity among the organisms and genes that reside in the gut allow for complex interactions with human cells and systems impacting our eating habits and brain behavior in very intricate ways.
How We Eat Matters
Concerning ourselves with what we eat is certainly vital for better health, but it is putting the cart before the horse to not first consider how we are eating . The manner in which we eat impacts the destiny and utilization of the foods we eat. Let’s walk through this with examples.
Take a typical lunch break for a busy American workday. You go down to the cafeteria and grab a few things that immediately appeal to you. You rush back to your desk, food and drink in hand, and sit down at your computer. You unwrap and uncap and proceed to shovel food into your mouth mindlesslywhile scrolling through a report or answering emails. It all has the same flavor. Your food is gone within a matter of about 5 minutes. You barely took a breath. You did not set your food down. You did not look at your food, smell your food, or think about your food. You simply hammered it down your gut to meet the physiological need for sustenance.
Consider the activity of your central nervous system during this process. While you were speed eating, you were also consuming information that has nothing to do with eating. You were engaging in work activities, activities that likely cause stress. While you were rushing to eat and reading email and barely breathing, your heart rate increased and your pupils constricted. Your sympathetic nervous system (the fight or flight system) activated. Digestion is a parasympathetic activity (rest and digest) and, therefore, requires a state of calm relaxation to function optimally, rather than rushed panic. From a neurological perspective, this mindless way of eating is suboptimal conditions for the digestive system to break down, absorb, and utilize food. It’s like asking your 50-piece orchestra to play in the middle of a football stadium during a homecoming game; it’s all just noise and nobody performs well.
Now, let’s look at an example of eating mindfully. You go to your bag and take out the packed lunch you prepared the night before—leftovers from a delicious home cooked meal. You take your lunch to the common area to meet with a few friends and sit down at a quiet table. You unwrap your food, see it and smell it. Now, you take your first bite, chewing it at least 15 to 30 times until the food is a pulp and easy to swallow. You relish in the flavor and set your fork down to socialize with friends. You take a deep breath, then take another bite, chewing fully. Your conversation and pace of eating slow your heart rate and your pupils dilate. You are in a relaxed state of mind allowing your digestive symphonic orchestra to perform a classic that will earn a standing ovation. You finish your meal and return to your desk energized ready to take on the afternoon.
See the difference? In the first example, your body will not utilize the nutrients you consume to the same degree of efficiency as your body will in the later example. The input of information, the way you eat, influences your central nervous system and the second brain, determining your physical and psychological well-being surrounding a single meal. Now, consider the way you eat three to five meals per day, 21 to 35 meal per week, 1,092 to 1,820 meals per year, and you can see how the way we eat can dramatically impact our nutrition and health.
Why We Eat—Mindset Matters
Let’s explore the bidirectional communication between mind and gut a bit further. The “gut-brain” axis, the neurological connection between the enteric nervous system and central nervous system, works in two ways. Information is sent from the gut to the brain containing data about what is eaten and how it is eaten. Information is also sent from the brain to the gut containing data about one’s psychological and emotional state. If your mind is distracted or on high alert, it will disrupt digestion. Inversely, if your digestion is off kilter, it will influence your mood and decision-making. Gut imbalance or dysbiosis can, therefore, trigger food cravings and uncontrolled eating. Also, depression and anxiety are key factors in gastrointestinal symptoms including bloating, diarrhea, fatigue, constipation, and inflammation. Our mind and gut are intricately linked, so our mindset during meals and our relationship with the food we eat matters.
Having an appreciative mindset viewing food as nourishment, as a life-giving gift from nature, will improve mood and subsequently optimize digestive processes, allowing you to utilize nutrients optimally in turn improving your mood even more. This is a positive self-reinforcing cycle. Similarly, if you stress out about what to eat, often symptomatic of a dieting approach, you will minimize the efficacy of your digestive processes, diminishing the nutrition you receive from food, and further stress your body out. This is a negative self-reinforcing cycle.
With this knowledge of what makes for positive, optimal eating conditions and habits, you can start to make better choices. Relax and enjoy your food mindfully in the company of others, if possible, and be grateful for the nourishment you receive. Find a peaceful, enjoyable environment to eat and take time to practice awareness. Choose to prioritize your health for 20 minutes a few times per day as you eat a meal and you will be astounded by the results of these simple adjustments.
Mindful Eating Strategies
- Eat in an environment away from the stimulus of work or other stressors
- Converse with people while you eat or listen to a podcast/audio book
- Smell your food
- Look at your food
- Set your eating utensil down multiple times throughout the meal
- Take deep breaths in between bites
- Chew your food at least 15 to 30 times per bite
- Be grateful for life-giving nourishment, nature’s gift
Trying some of these simple mindfulness techniques while you eat will activate the parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest) and enable optimal digestion, absorption, and utilization of nutrients.