You may have heard people say that it is recommended for us to eat slower, especially now when out world is becoming even more fast paced and on the go.

Because of this, I decided to look into what are some of the benefits of actually taking more time to eat our food and how we can practice eating more mindfully ourselves.

I hope you find this a useful guide on a rather niche topic, but one that could serve to be very important for our long term health.

Happy reading.

WHY TRY TO EAT SLOWER?

Helps with maintaining weight
- By eating slower, we first get the feeling of being fuller soon, due to the hunger controlling hormones, leptin and grehlin being able to properly take their effect some time after we have started eating. The hormone leptin is known as the satiety hormone, allowing us to feel full and grehlin is responsible for making us feel hunger.
- By taking more time with our food, leptin is released in an appropriate timeframe and sensed by our body, so we can stop once we are full and in this way prevent over eating or over boarding with unnecessary calories, allowing us to better manage our weight.

More chewing
- Eating slower also means that we get to focus more on chewing our food enough, which actually also benefits our digestion, since it makes it easier for our body to breakdown and absorb those nutrients, preventing any excessive bloating or abdominal discomfort.

More enjoyment and taste in your food
- Mindful eating from a more simplistic view is also beneficial as it allows us to enjoy our food much more and in this way also taste the flavors and textures more, giving us overall more enjoyment while eating.

Can temporarily reduce stress
- Eating slower allows us to surprisingly also reduce short term stress due to being more mindful while eating which allows us to focus more on our food in the present moment and focus less on our worries about the past or future.
- Once again, by being stressed less, we furthermore enjoy our food more.

Encourages us to cook more at home
- If we take more time when eating our food, we have a better experience with enjoying our food and tasting its flavors. In this way, in the case that we are eating a home cooked meal, we can become more proud of what we have prepared due to its enhanced taste, which encourages us to prepare more of our meals at home with fresh ingredients, ultimately supporting us in eating more healthy.

TIPS FOR EATING SLOWER

Chewing more
Setting down your eating utensils every so often
Drinking while eating
Avoiding extreme hunger
Turning off screens during eating
Using a timer if needed
Sit down when eating, don't eat standing up

Wether you have a aim like me to start eating more slowly or wether it is something that you already practice, I hope you have learned something useful from this set of condensed advice.

The point isn't to strive after perfection, but instead to just keep being a better version of yourself. Do your best when it comes to taking time for your food, as you will do a lot of good for your own health.

Thanks for reading :)