Combat Food cravings with mindfulness. A blog post by Sally Singleton of Mindful Interlude.
Why do we have Food Cravings
Do you eat for comfort or to avoid your emotions?
Life can be stressful for all of us at times and each of us deals with it in different ways.
Some cope using exercise, being in nature or meditating for example, and some of us drink alcohol, shout at the kids or partners and some of us tend to eat.
Are you one of those people who dive straight into the biscuit tin or grab the chocolate out of the cupboard in times of distress? If you are, you are most definitely not alone!
Many of us use food to comfort ourselves or to avoid our emotions. It can be a quick and easy fix for a comforting dopamine hit when we’re feeling low.
Does Comfort Eating Combat Food Cravings?
Perhaps at the moment, yes, you do feel better.
Then what?
You may feel guilty, ashamed, physically a bit ‘meh’ and of course, your problem is still there, it hasn’t gone away it’s just been stuffed down and buried under a heap of chocolate.
These suppressed emotions almost always come back up at some point, but now you have two problems!
- The original issue, which hadn’t been dealt with is still there.
- An additional slap in the face from eating something you wish you hadn’t.
Often when we eat emotionally, it can be so automatic and mindless that we don’t even notice what we are doing until it’s too late.
All of a sudden, we’ve eaten a whole packet of Oreos.
Sadly, the more you eat in this way, the more you strengthen those neural pathways of the brain, and the more those habits become ingrained as a coping mechanism.
In the long run, we get into poor eating habits which impact our nutritional health and can lead to mental or emotional health issues.
How can Mindfulness help with Food Cravings?
When you think of mindful eating, maybe you think of eating slowly, taking your time, chewing each mouthful, and savouring what you eat?
Mindfulness is so much more than this.
Mindfulness skills build awareness of what is happening in our mind and body before we even have the urge to eat. You can read more about this in my blog post: Common Mindfulness Questions.
We can learn to see our triggers and habits clearly and pause before we take that bite or perhaps stop when we realise that we have mindlessly eaten past comfortable fullness.
In today’s modern society we are very often so disconnected from our bodies that we don’t see the early warning signs of stress and the onset of cravings before it’s too late.
Through practising mindfulness, we become more in tune with our emotions.
Being in tune with our body helps us to recognise when we are becoming stressed and make more skilful choices about how we want to deal with them.
Food Cravings Mindfulness Practice
Here is a 5-minute mindfulness practice you can use in the moment to calm the mind.
This is a practice to help you deal with cravings to eat when you’re not actually hungry.
It has been designed to reconnect your mind with your body so that you can make a more informed decision about what to do next.
This RAIN practice was first developed by Michele McDonald and then tweaked so that it can be used for food cravings.
It goes like this…
As soon as you notice yourself heading for the fridge, simply pause. Take yourself away to somewhere you can be quiet and won’t be disturbed.
If you wish, you can close your eyes and bring your attention to your physical body:
RAIN Mindfulness Practice
- R – recognise. Take a moment to recognise what is here for you in this moment. Ask yourself “what is happening right now?” What thoughts, feelings and emotions come along with this craving to eat?
- A – accept. Once you have acknowledged that this is how you are feeling, see if it’s possible to bring some acceptance to your craving. You are not saying that you agree with what you are experiencing but that you are aware that it’s already here. Rather than fight the feelings, can you be open to them?
- I – investigate. What does this craving actually feel like in the body? For example, you may experience your mouth watering, you may have a tight chest, or your heart beating faster. Whatever it is, try to explore these feelings and sensations, watching how they move, change or stay the same. Be curious with as much kindly interest as you can.
- N – nurture. Talk to yourself as you would a good friend, offer caring words of support and kindness e.g., “this is really hard right now”, “it’s going to be OK”, or “it’s OK to feel this”.
You can stay with this practice until the craving begins to subside or until you can reappraise the situation and make a healthier choice about what to do next.
Maybe you no longer want to eat the chocolate? Perhaps it would be better to rest, go for a walk, or meet a friend?
You can ask yourself the question “what do I really need right now?”
Mindfulness Practice Aims
What this practice aims to do, is to recognise that cravings often come from difficult emotions that manifest in the body.
If we pause long enough to recognise this, we can see that these cravings are a mixture of body sensations, thoughts and emotions.
We can recognise that they are impermanent and will pass in their own time. It also allows us the space and clarity to make a better choice, perhaps a healthier response to our emotional needs.
Training the mind to pause in these moments of need it can help to have a regular and consistent mindfulness habit.
“Make sure you weave your parachute every day, rather than leave it to the time you have to jump out of the plane”
Jon Kabat-Zinn
If you would like some help to get you started, you can download my Journey to Peace and Happiness Mindfulness Habit starter. This is a 5-minute a day for 5 days practice to get you started.
Sally Singleton is a trained mindfulness teacher who works with busy, working women who tend to get caught up in overthinking and have difficulty switching off.
Sally has trained with the Oxford Mindfulness Centre, Bangor University and the UK Mindfulness Network and is undertaking an MA in Mindfulness-Based Approaches. She is also a member of the British Association of Mindfulness-Based Approaches. Before this, she spent 14 years in Corporate Learning and Development in the UK and the Middle East.