Beyond Mindful Eating
Episode #10 of the course Mindful eating by Sanchia Parker
The past nine lessons have given you the skills and techniques required to be a mindful eater. However, we know mindfulness can benefit so many other areas of our lives. So, move forward and explore what’s beyond.
Mental Well-Being
Bringing awareness to the present moment lets us enjoy the world around us and understand ourselves better. Mindfulness can also help alleviate stress by regulating emotions, leading to improved mood and better ability to handle pressure.
Besides that, mindfulness decreases depression, anxiety, and stress not only of healthy people but also of those suffering from chronic disease, since it helps the person accept their current life and makes disease symptoms more manageable.
Academic Success
Mindfulness may also improve academic achievement for students, as it promotes social skills and attention, both resulting in better performance. It also reduces anger of some children and increases their focus.
Research has also shown that mindfulness has a protective effect against bullying by improving resilience and reducing stress.
Work Performance
Mindfulness in the workplace helps decrease stress and fatigue in employees, resulting in improved sociability and greater job satisfaction. It also lowers the rate of staff turnover burnout. Employees who have more mindfulness skills are less likely to leave their jobs, possibly due to decreased feelings of stress and improved mental well-being.
Sporting Performance
According to a recent area of research, mindfulness improves athletes’ sporting performance. It helps find a state of complete focus, and thus, they can concentrate on the task at hand and remove unnecessary distraction.
Another benefit is the decreased resting heart rates experienced through mindful breathing. A lower resting heart rate improves heart function and endurance, which enhances sporting performance.
Exercising mindfulness:
Here are a few tools that can help you become more mindful:
• Apps: There are plenty of apps that can help introduce you to mindful meditation—for example, The Mindfulness App, Headspace, and Calm. Just plug in your headphones to get started.
• Yoga and tai chi: Combining poses and gentle movement with breathing while paying attention to the sensations in your body is a great way to develop mindful skills.
• Sing!: Joining voice in song can be powerful. A small study found that singing in a choir may improve your mindfulness skills.
That was the last lesson of the course. Congrats! I hope you are now equipped with enough knowledge to improve your relationships with food. I wish you best luck with implementing them in practice.
Want to read more by Sanchia? Check out her health and well-being blog over at Seed&Kilter.
Recommended book
Mindfulness for Beginners: Reclaiming the Present Moment and Your Life by Jon Kabat-Zinn PhD
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