“The digestive system has immense power over our emotions, something that also works the other way around,” says Fani García, a biochemist, psychoneuroimmunologist and psychotherapist specializing in digestive pathologies and eating disorders (ED).
He explains that some recent studies “tell us how fear, anxiety or sustained stress over time have a direct impact on our digestive system, beyond whether a meal makes us feel better or worse.”
This specialist knows what she is talking about, because she experienced the consequences of three simultaneous digestive pathologies through which she understood as a patient and as a professional that the brain has a lot to do with the stomach.
“Getting up every morning was a real effort. Everything I ate made me feel sick, made me bloated, heavy, cramped, and if I was lucky I could get through it without ending up writhing in pain in the bathroom. The pace of life and stress I was carrying on my back were unsustainable,” she recalls.
“Irritable colon, reflux and chronic gastritis, they called it. These were names that only represented that every day I was getting worse, despite seeing numerous nutritionists, digestive specialists, diets galore, therapies…”, García points out.
That experience led her to create a therapeutic method and program to recover her digestive and emotional health called Neurodigestive Reprogramming, which she defines as “a ladder to get out of the hole” she found herself in and which has also helped many people get out of that darkness, she says.
For this specialist, we are not only nourished by the food on our plate, but in a metaphorical sense, we are nourished by everything that surrounds us at every moment, for example, what we feel and what we think.
For this reason, becoming aware of this set of mental and emotional factors is a decisive step to begin transforming our physical and mental health, as explained in his book It’s your belly that screams.
First steps to nourish yourself by paying attention
Conscious eating is a philosophy that invites us to stop, relax and enjoy what we have on our plate, and “its purpose is for us to be able to relate to food through full awareness,” according to García.
Although it may seem like a very abstract approach, putting the first steps of this philosophy into practice can be “a good start to recovering the beautiful relationship you had with food, if you feel that it has been stolen from you by digestive problems,” says García, who recommends applying the following conscious eating techniques:
1. Start from consciousness
“Before you start cooking, spend 5 minutes thinking about and trying to find the origin of each ingredient: whether it is a local food (produced close to where it is consumed) or organic (without chemicals or additives); how it was harvested and grown. Also imagine the way you are going to cook it and the cooking point you want to achieve,” he advises.
2. Eat more slowly
To slow down the eating process, Garcia advises: “Eat with your non-dominant hand (the left hand if you are right-handed, or the right hand if you are left-handed); hold the bites in your mouth for 5 seconds (moving or tasting them) before chewing; and then chew each bite 25 to 30 times (counting mentally).
“Your mind will tell you that you are eating too slowly, but you will only be able to draw constructive conclusions if you overcome it and see the exercise through to the end,” she stresses.
3. Leave technology aside
“Forget about your cell phone, television or any other electronic device that could distract you, because if you do another activity while eating, you will end up eating more food than if you put your full attention on your plate,” she says.
4. You don’t have to finish the whole plate
García recommends taking three breaks while eating: “The first is when you sit down at the table, taking advantage of it to evaluate your hunger level from 0 to 10; after eating half of your plate, take a second break and evaluate again, taking into account your level of satiety,” he explains.
“When you finish eating, re-evaluate whether you feel full or whether you have eaten too much food, taking note of this result to self-regulate the next time you eat,” says García, adding that if there is food left over, it can be stored in a container to be consumed at dinner or the next day.
5. Try to be the last to finish
At family meals, with friends or at work, it is more difficult to eat slowly, as we pay more attention to the company than to what we are eating, according to García.
To remedy this situation, this specialist suggests paying attention to the diners, identifying the one who eats more slowly, trying to keep up with their pace and being the last person to finish eating.
“With these simple habits, you can begin to transform the way you relate to food and turn that moment into a space for self-care, pampering and pleasure, within your possibilities and context,” she says.
“Applying ‘conscious eating’ should not add more stress to our daily lives. Starting little by little and progressively can help in the process. Focusing on the act of eating and leaving everything else aside can be a good starting point,” concludes Fani García.
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