Why Eating Mindfully Is Critical for Health. What Happens When You Don’t

Eating mindfully while staying in the current moment encourages you to control your portions, drop weight, and lead a healthy life.

Experiencing delightful moments of complete awareness, like the feel of a fresh breeze on your skin or the soothing bird chirping sounds, can be therapeutic. These are the moments when we are wholly mindful or aware of what’s happening in our surroundings rather than being a slave of the unending mind chatter. Mindfulness is essential while eating too, and the recipient of its health benefits are both body and mind. Eating mindfully reduces our stress level, helps us digest food better, limits calorie intake, and reduces weight. Mindfully controlling portions and making better food choices make us healthy in the long run. Just like connecting with the inner self is the need of the hour, making a connection with food while cooking and eating is equally important.

What is Mindful Eating and Why Is it important

When you eat mindfully, you pay attention to every morsel, not multi-tasking and not indulging in needless thinking. You also observe how your body and mind are reacting to the food. Ideally, eating in silence while staying away from any external source of noise or interruption maximizes the benefits of mindful eating. Not just eating, cooking mindfully is equally crucial for a healthy body and mind. “It is not merely about enjoying taste and smell of the food, it’s about thinking about the healthy benefits of the food from the point of cooking (preparation of food) till its processing in your body,” says Rita Mahapatra, Dietitian, Nutritionist, PCOS, Thyroid & Weight Loss Expert.