Cultivating Gratitude: A Mindful Practice

Whether your act of gratitude is big or small, the act of gratitude can have positive effects on our overall well-being. Research finds that grateful people tend to sleep better, have improved self-esteem and overall stronger mental health.

There are many ways to experience and express gratitude. The typical forms are daily journaling, pausing to be present, and of course, reaching out to people to say thank you or let them know you are thinking of them.

So how can this be applied to daily eating practices?

Saying grace. Traditionally, gratitude is paired with the meal. And regardless of our beliefs, sharing gratitude for our food, thinking about where it came from, where it was grown, who provided the meal, who prepared it and who we share it with can bring attention to mealtimes and a regular gratitude routine.

Pausing to the present. How often do you stop to think about your food? What it really looks like. The aroma. The taste and texture. Sometimes food can transport us to a memory. Maybe this is our favorite food. Mindfulness and gratitude go hand in hand. You can take this time to pause and share about your meal and how it makes you feel, what it tastes like, share about the specifics in your meal. Sometimes I even compare this to being a judge on a food show! Of course, this "judge" is kind in their critique and observations. We can take in much more information and open up the experience of eating just by tuning into our meal and discussing the traits of these foods we really take for granted.

Slowing down to be grateful. Even if it's only a moment of slowing down, this goes hand in hand with pausing. Many times a day we experience hunger. Then we spend time acquiring our food. We actually make over 200 decisions a day finding something satisfying, nutritious, good tasting and cost effective to eat, not to mention how much, when, where and so on. What happens when we finally make the decision and get our food? Well, sometimes we eat it up so quickly and move on.

But even in our rushed moments, we can take opportunities to slow down and take notice of our accomplishment in finding this food. Take a moment to ask yourself, what are you grateful for? Mindfulness practice begins by shifting to gratitude because of how powerfully it infiltrates the mind. When you shift focus at your mealtime to gratitude it is proposed that we can change our perspective and attitude. Don't forget to be specific. Tell yourself what you really have to be grateful for and why. By bringing this practice to your meals you can make this conscious shift at least 3 times a day.

Kindness and compassion. By acknowledging your body and responding with trust, you can find gratitude in the work it does to keep you alive. Bringing awareness to your body's intuitive cues: of hunger, of fullness, the cravings we may deny ourselves, the new adventurous foods, and even the familiar foods. When you respond with awareness, do this by speaking to yourself with kindness and grant loving permission to feed yourself. Set aside the food police, the guilt, the "shoulds" and "shouldn'ts", the "good" and "healthy" or "bad" and deemed "unhealthy". Replace the judgmental voice with a neutral one, a curious one, one of a friend, or someone who loves you. By releasing judgement, you can reconnect with your body, learn about what your body tells you and trust your body by honoring what it asks of you. If we are kind to ourselves, I wonder how much more good we could do for our self-care. When in doubt, find gratitude in the amazing ability of your body.