Medicinal & Mindful Eats
On the subject of my eyes too often glossing over screens, I will shamefully yet honestly raise my hand. Most of us are scrolling, typing, zooming, tapping beyond the nine-to-five necessity to do so for work. Sure, digital socialisation is undoubtedly a staple of our lives and I'm always in awe of all that it has given me—from online connexions to real-life friendships.
Yet, it has also led to deep disconnexions—namely, from our food and our bodies. How many bites are chewed and sips are imbibed in over bytes? How do we break our fast and fill our stomachs while simultaneously filling our minds with digital information? How often is this information toxic, draining, or unfulfilling? Eating dinner with a side of comparative stories + disheartening world news. We chew and digest them all—information is food for our brain that drains our bodies from the energy it could be pooling for digesting our meals . . .
Rest
Many of us are guilty of eating sad desk lunches, still surrounded by our often stressful work environment when lunch time comes around. If you do eat at your desk, make sure to rest your eyes + mind before your meal. Step away from the screen, get up, and stretch your body out. I love side-stretches and backbends to optimise + release my muscles for digestion. I close my eyes during these short stretches to rest my eyes in the meantime. Only then can I truly feel present in my hunger, body, + surroundings, allowing my lunch to be my focus rather than my sad desk . . .
Pause
We aren't designed to multitask amidst eating. There was an anthropological and primal need beyond fueling and nomadism that kept us together around the fire—it was kinship and the pause in recognising the sacredness of food. The wash of a thousand waves is contained within a grain of sea salt, the touch of a labouring farmer, or the heart of a mother. Energy is infused into our food that must be acknowledged and equally digested. If we cook in anger, we eat in anger—chemicals react and shift from our food to our bodies. Have a conversation, release your anger or sadness, pause before you prepare and eat.
Pleasure as Medicine
We have moved away from listening to and honouring our cravings. Here is a handy tool to guide you into understanding the possible deficiency issues that may factor into your cravings as well as how to feed them in a medicinal, nutrient-dense manner. I used to crave completely unsweetened dark chocolate every single day and, it turns out, my magnesium levels were slightly lower than before. A friend of mine also experienced odd cravings for orange juice until they detected very low vitamin c levels. Our bodies are wiser than we give them credit for and much more intuitive than our calculations. Happiness out of moments like these can re-wire our physiology out of habitual reactions into newfound vibrant perspectives . . .
Reads
For further reads in mindful eating, sip on the words of Thich Naht Hanh in "How to Eat" and Charles Eisenstein in "The Yoga of Eating: Transcending Diets and Dogma to Nourish the Natural Self"
