What Is Mindful Eating?

Mindful eating is the act of being present while eating or drinking.

If you’re food secure, you’re eating numerous times throughout the day. You might feel too busy or too stressed to take a break to eat, but how often do you eat without distraction or interruption? How often do you savor the food and drink that you’re consuming? Chances are you’re eating on auto-pilot and not paying any attention to the way food tastes, feels, and impacts your body and brain.

Mindful eating allows you to stop, slow down, and really pay attention.

The Connection Between Food and the Brain

There are countless studies suggesting the impact of food on mental health.Uma Naidoo, MD, Harvard-trained nutritional psychiatrist, professional chef, nutrition specialist, and author ofThis is Your Brain on Food, refers to the connection between diet and mental and neurological health as the “gut-brainromance.”

The same embryonic cells which founded our brain and nervous system also founded the gastrointestinal system, Dr. Naidoo explains, and these systems remain inextricably linked through the vagus nerve which controls our “rest and digest” system.

“The role of the gut microbiome cannot be understated,” Dr. Naidoo says. The gut flora can produce the same mood- and cognition-governingneurotransmittersas the brain, and when the brain is adequately fueled and equipped with the right tools (and nutrients), it can carry out its essential and executive functions and operate in the most optimal way.

You may notice that your inflammation increases after a high-processed meal, or that your body feels more energized when you’re eating more vegetables. The correlation betweenfood and mental healthgoes much deeper than many realize. Studies have found that diet, along with exercise, can actually counteract neurological and cognitive disorders, such as epilepsy and dementia.It is also closely tied to anxiety, depression, and sleep.

Identify Your Relationship With Food

Certain diets may be more beneficial to your mental health than others, but mindful eating encourages you to look beyond the foods you eat and focus onhowyou eat. Do you eat at your kitchen counter, while preparing your childrens’ after-school snacks? Do you heat up leftovers and devour them while scrolling through your news feeds?

As you begin to practice mindful eating, it’s important to recognize your relationship with food. How do you feel about food? Do you eat when you’re stressed? Do you replace meals with snacks when you’re busy? Doessugarmake you anxious? Do certain foods help you focus?

Asking these questions can be difficult, especially for those who experience or have experienced disordered eating or aneating disorder, but it can help you establish healthier eating habits which, in turn, can support your mental and behavioral health.

The Difference Between Disordered Eating and an Eating Disorder

According to Dr. Naidoo, the concept ofmindfulness, or nonjudgmental, present-moment awareness, ties in seamlessly with one of the six pillars ofnutritional psychiatry, which focuses on food as medicine for mental health: body intelligence.

“As we take moments with ourselves to listen to our body and mind through the process of eating our daily meals, we develop a keen awareness of the elements of our diet which benefit us most,” she says. “In doing so, we are empowered to consciously select those foods which best enable our happiest, healthiest selves.”

How to Practice Mindful Eating

Life can move quickly, and stopping to eat without distraction and interruption can feel impossible at times, but mindful eating doesn’t have to be time-consuming. All you have to do is slow down and pay attention.

Here are some ways to practice mindful eating on a daily basis:

What Causes Emotional or Stress Eating?

Mindful eating is not a diet. The purpose of mindful eating isn’t to lose weight or cut back on calories; the purpose is to improve your relationship with food and overall eating experience.

“Dieting or restricting, in any form, doesn’t work,” says RanDee Anshutz, registered dietitian nutritionist, licensed massage therapist, certified Body Trust® Provider, and founder ofSynergy. “The pursuit of weight loss or controlling the size of our body causes more harm than good.”

Knowing the negative impact of certain foods on your body doesn’t mean you have to remove those foods from your diet. With mindful eating, you can learn to enjoy the taste and feel of a single chocolate chip cookie, for example, as opposed to eating half a dozen without realizing it.

A Word From Verywell

“The practice of mindfulness has helped thousands of people live more intentionally and develop the skills necessary to manage chronic pain, disease, depression, sleeping problems, and anxiety,” says Dr. Naidoo.

Mindful eating is an ongoing practice. When you cook your next meal or pick up takeout, pay attention to the food and how it tastes and feels. You don’t have to necessarily sit at a kitchen table and eat over an extended period of time; you just have to be willing to focus on the experience as it unfolds.

3 SourcesVerywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Gomez-Pinilla F.The combined effects of exercise and foods in preventing neurological and cognitive disorders.Preventive Medicine. 2011;52:S75-S80. doi:10.1016/j.ypmed.2011.01.023Arenas DJ, Thomas A, Wang J, DeLisser HM.A systematic review and meta-analysis of depression, anxiety, and sleep disorders in us adults with food insecurity.J GEN INTERN MED. 2019;34(12):2874-2882. doi:10.1007/s11606-019-05202-4Ferriday D, Bosworth ML, Godinot N, et al.Variation in the oral processing of everyday meals is associated with fullness and meal size; a potential nudge to reduce energy intake?Nutrients. 2016;8(5):315. doi:10.3390%2Fnu8050315

3 Sources

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Gomez-Pinilla F.The combined effects of exercise and foods in preventing neurological and cognitive disorders.Preventive Medicine. 2011;52:S75-S80. doi:10.1016/j.ypmed.2011.01.023Arenas DJ, Thomas A, Wang J, DeLisser HM.A systematic review and meta-analysis of depression, anxiety, and sleep disorders in us adults with food insecurity.J GEN INTERN MED. 2019;34(12):2874-2882. doi:10.1007/s11606-019-05202-4Ferriday D, Bosworth ML, Godinot N, et al.Variation in the oral processing of everyday meals is associated with fullness and meal size; a potential nudge to reduce energy intake?Nutrients. 2016;8(5):315. doi:10.3390%2Fnu8050315

Gomez-Pinilla F.The combined effects of exercise and foods in preventing neurological and cognitive disorders.Preventive Medicine. 2011;52:S75-S80. doi:10.1016/j.ypmed.2011.01.023Arenas DJ, Thomas A, Wang J, DeLisser HM.A systematic review and meta-analysis of depression, anxiety, and sleep disorders in us adults with food insecurity.J GEN INTERN MED. 2019;34(12):2874-2882. doi:10.1007/s11606-019-05202-4Ferriday D, Bosworth ML, Godinot N, et al.Variation in the oral processing of everyday meals is associated with fullness and meal size; a potential nudge to reduce energy intake?Nutrients. 2016;8(5):315. doi:10.3390%2Fnu8050315

Gomez-Pinilla F.The combined effects of exercise and foods in preventing neurological and cognitive disorders.Preventive Medicine. 2011;52:S75-S80. doi:10.1016/j.ypmed.2011.01.023

Arenas DJ, Thomas A, Wang J, DeLisser HM.A systematic review and meta-analysis of depression, anxiety, and sleep disorders in us adults with food insecurity.J GEN INTERN MED. 2019;34(12):2874-2882. doi:10.1007/s11606-019-05202-4

Ferriday D, Bosworth ML, Godinot N, et al.Variation in the oral processing of everyday meals is associated with fullness and meal size; a potential nudge to reduce energy intake?Nutrients. 2016;8(5):315. doi:10.3390%2Fnu8050315

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