Meditation: Supporting Healthy Habits

While meditation has a host of health benefits including stress + anxiety management, lowering blood pressure and helping with insomnia, did you know it can aid in forming healthy habits?

Mindful Eating

Most diets are unsustainable without a behavioral change. Mindful eating encourages you to slow down, relish your foods’ scent, texture and flavor. It’s about quality over quantity. Jon Kabatt-Zin is the creator of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MSBR) program and is considered the father of modern mindfulness. Mindful Eating: The Art of Presence While You Eat, an article shared by the National Institutes of Health, explains the history and approaches to mindful eating. The article also shares MBSR’s signature raisin eating exercise. At CH/LL we prefer to use chocolate, but the premise is the same. Slow-way-down. Engage all your senses. Experience raisin-eating (or chocolate-eating) like you never have before. 

Elements of mindful eating are present in the preponderance of digital programs, like the Noom app, which takes a psychological approach to diet. Even global snacking giant Mondelez is supportive of this approach to consuming food. Mondelez is committed to transparency in portion control and is on track to have Snack Mindfully portion icons on all snack packs globally by 2025.

Beat Addiction

The American Psychological Association confirmed that opioid and stimulant use is rising one year into the global COVID-19 pandemic. From opioids to nicotine, mindfulness can help with addictive behavior. The pause before reacting encouraged by mindfulness helps us become self-aware. It gives us a better sense of our emotions. This allows us to acknowledge triggers and behave less impulsively, exhibiting self-control. A 2018 Substance Abuse and Rehabilitation study identified mindfulness training as a successful intervention for preventing relapse, increasing self-control and found a negative correlation between meditation and cravings as well as substance abuse.

Mindfulness has been speculated to play a positive role in managing addiction for many years. For instance, it plays a critical role in step 11 of Alcoholics Anonymous’ Big Book which was 1st published in 1939. It is also part of other behavioral therapy programs that help people conquer addictions of all kinds.

Meditating just a couple of minutes a day can support your journey in building healthy habits. Did you know that we have a whole section on Chill Anywhere dedicated to mini practices? To get started try this short Intention Setting practice. Just a couple of minutes a day. It’s good for you.