Conscious Consuming: The Raisin Exercise and Guided Meditation

Have you ever ever discovered your self reaching for a bag of chips or a sweet bar with out even realizing it? Or perhaps you’ve eaten a whole meal whereas distracted by your cellphone or tv? Right here’s a conscious consuming guided meditation.

It occurs to us all! One option to observe conscious consuming is thru the “raisin” exercise, a conscious consuming guided meditation that may assist you to grow to be extra conscious of your consuming habits.

Keep in mind that meals is a lot extra than simply the bodily nourishment for our our bodies, it’s additionally about enjoyment, connection, custom, social expertise, cultural expertise, artistic expression, and pleasure! It’s regular for us to expertise consuming alongside feelings or distraction. 

Conscious Consuming: The Raisin Exercise and Guided Meditation

Many people battle with senseless consuming or consuming with out being totally conscious of what we’re placing in our our bodies. However there’s a answer: conscious consuming. By training mindfulness whereas consuming, we will be taught to savor and luxuriate in our meals extra totally, construct a extra balanced and peaceable relationship with meals, and even enhance our total well being. 

This train is a improbable option to observe conscious consuming and it may be performed with any meals!

I discovered this observe from my current coaching in MBSR (mindfulness-based stress discount). The raisin exercise is a typical mindfulness train used within the context of conscious consuming. Whereas it’s not fully clear who first developed this exercise, it’s typically attributed to Jon Kabat-Zinn, a professor of medication and the founding father of the Mindfulness-Primarily based Stress Discount program on the College of Massachusetts Medical College. Kabat-Zinn is well known as one of many pioneers of contemporary mindfulness observe and has contributed considerably to its integration into mainstream drugs and psychology.

What Is The Raisin Exercise?

The raisin exercise is a guided meditation that includes utilizing your whole senses to mindfully eat a single raisin. This train is designed that can assist you decelerate, take note of your meals, and savor each chew.

Once more, should you don’t get pleasure from raisins or don’t have them readily available, use any meals you want and have.

Right here’s how you can do the raisin conscious consuming meditation: 

1. Begin by discovering a snug and quiet place to sit down. When you’ve got a particular or devoted meditation house in your house, use this house. Be sure to gained’t be disturbed for the subsequent 10-Quarter-hour.
2. Take a number of deep breaths and focus your consideration in your physique. Really feel your toes on the bottom and your again towards the chair. Enable your self to loosen up and let go of any rigidity.
3. Take a raisin and maintain it within the palm of your hand. Look at the raisin together with your eyes, listening to its form, shade, and texture. Discover any ridges or wrinkles on the floor.
4. Deliver the raisin as much as your nostril and take a deep breath. Discover any scent or aroma that the raisin provides off.
5. Slowly place the raisin in your mouth, however don’t chew it but. Discover the feeling of the raisin in your tongue and the within of your mouth. Enable it to sit down in your mouth for a number of seconds.
6. Start to chew the raisin slowly and mindfully, listening to the feeling of every chew. Discover the feel and taste of the raisin.
7. Swallow the raisin and see the feeling of it happening your throat.
8. Take a second to mirror in your expertise. How did it really feel to eat the raisin mindfully? Did you discover any new sensations or flavors that you simply wouldn’t have seen in any other case?

The raisin exercise is a strong device for training conscious consuming. By bringing your full consideration to the act of consuming, you’ll be able to domesticate a deeper appreciation on your meals and develop a more healthy relationship with it.

Why Observe Conscious Consuming?

There are various advantages to training conscious consuming. For one, it could actually assist you to grow to be extra conscious of your starvation and fullness cues, permitting you to higher regulate your meals consumption and keep your distinctive balanced weight.

Conscious consuming can even assist you to get pleasure from your meals extra totally and cut back emotions of guilt or disgrace round consuming. Moreover, training conscious consuming might help you grow to be extra conscious of your emotional triggers round meals and develop more healthy coping mechanisms.

Suggestions for Training Conscious Consuming

Along with the raisin exercise, there are numerous different methods to observe conscious consuming. Listed below are a number of tricks to get began:

1. Eat with out distractions: Keep away from consuming whereas watching TV, utilizing your cellphone, or working at your pc. As an alternative, focus your whole consideration in your meals.
2. Decelerate: Take your time whereas consuming, and chew every chew totally. It will assist you to savor the flavors and textures of your meals.
3. Take note of your physique: Examine in together with your physique earlier than, throughout, and after consuming. Discover how these sensations really feel in your physique with no judgment and loads of self-compassion.