You’d think that, during a time of state-regulated quarantine, there would be more hours in a day to mentally unpack all of the grimey habits and vices I have managed to accumulate over the span of my life. But you would be wrong. Oh, so wrong.
Well, not entirely.
The newly freed hours in my day are there – I’m just incapable of productively utilizing them. In fact, I’ve picked up a horrible habit since beginning quarantine: the boredom munchies.
Without anywhere to go but my desk, I found myself living in front of the fridge each day. Scouring through its contents like a depraved animal, as if another hot dog could give me reprieve from the aching lethargy of boredom.
When I realized that, “No, the numbers on the scale are not lying,” and, “Yes, it’s because you’ve been devouring everything in your line of sight for the past two months,” I knew something needed to change.
That’s when I began mindful eating.
Mindful eating is the practice of honing in on every aspect of the bite you are about to take, before even taking it. While the typical meal zooms by in a flash, seemingly gone before it began, mindful eating requires acute observation of the senses to detect varying colors, flavors, textures, and smells of our food. It forces us to fully experience what we are consuming, slowing down the process and savoring each bite.
For me, practicing this with my daily lunch has significantly reduced the afternoon cravings I was once plagued with, perhaps because my body is satiated by the memory of my previous meal. Some other benefits to mindful eating include:
If you’re not sure how to start, linked here is a script for mindful eating, written by Duke University’s Integrated Medicine program.
Though I can’t speak for everyone, practicing mindful eating has given me back some of the agency I lost when quarantine began. I have control over my eating habits again, and that is fulfilling enough to satiate me until normalcy returns.
