PranaBeing blog: Something You Do Every Day

Here is a practical, simple, and powerful experiment to support your health.

Notice how you eat. That’s right. I said “how.”

Become aware of whether you are wolfing, nibbling or shoveling.

Do you take time to see, smell, and taste your food? Do you ever give thanks for or bless your food?

Are you reading/listening/watching/getting up intermittently to do chores while you are eating?

Are you eating while driving or commuting?

Do you eat when you are hungry (or when you’re not really hungry)?

Do you wait until long after you have been hungry to finally eat?

Where are you eating? What kind of environment is it (loud or quiet, chaotic or serene)?

Are you having difficult or disturbing conversations or laughing a lot while you eat?

Are you eating to reward yourself? Or to punish yourself?

What is your emotional state and what are the thoughts in your mind?

What do you do right after you eat?

Become a curious observer and notice the qualities of your eating environment, temperament, methodology. Set aside for a moment the fixation on what you are eating and for the next week just focus on how you are eating.

The key here is acutely attentive self-observation without judgment. Be scientific, unbiased. Simply observe and see if you can discover habits and behaviors that you may not have been totally conscious of before. This is self-empowerment. If you jump right into making yourself wrong, you will never feel safe enough to become conscious of what you are doing.

Take five minutes over the course of the next week to jot down or voice record your observations. Self-study is made much more powerful by getting the insights out of your head where you can see or hear them.

What are the predominant qualities you notice in regards to how you eat?

Do you notice these same qualities in other things you do besides eating?

How are these qualities influencing the way you feel throughout the day?

These qualities are important clues that will help you to modulate your health. Leave a comment and share what you discover.