Part 6: Meditation to Clear Food Cravings – Focused Meditation, Sound Meditation, and Mindfulness Meditation

Food! Food! Food! My mind is filled with food! When I start thinking about all the delicious desserts, I find I can't get desserts and chocolate out of my head. The thought keeps spinning in my brain like a wheel. Meditation is the only way I can find inner peace.

-John

You may have tried various methods to get rid of the cheesecake in the fridge or remove it from your mind: ignore it, pretend it's not there, argue with yourself, or try to tell yourself you don't want it. But clearing your mind of thoughts about food is not an easy task.

The good news is that meditation is a useful technique for clearing the mind, even when it's stuck with food. Meditation can help you explore the source of food cravings. It makes your consciousness look like a calm lake. When your consciousness is calm and clear, you can see the bottom of the lake. When it's active due to pain and fluctuating emotions, it's difficult to see what's beneath the surface or understand what caused the turmoil.

Meditation may seem a bit pretentious, or just a new, trendy fad. But it's not. It's been around for thousands of years, a simple way to calm yourself by adjusting your body's instinctive fight-or-flight response. This psychological response occurs when you're stressed. Your body prepares to fight or flee, increasing your heart rate and adrenaline, slowing your digestion, constricting your blood vessels, and accelerating your heartbeat. Meditation soothes this response by inducing its opposite-the relaxation response. The relaxation response completely alters the fight-or-flight response by slowing your heart rate and breathing, lowering your blood pressure, and relaxing your muscles.

One of the benefits of meditation is its flexibility and ease of implementation; you can use it anytime, anywhere. Meditation can bring many psychological and physiological benefits.

Psychological benefits of meditation

Reduce stress and anxiety.

Boost self-esteem.

Reduce impatience and mood swings.

Stay calm.

Improve your ability to focus.

Physiological benefits of meditation

Establish a relaxation response in the body, slowing down the heart rate and breathing frequency.

Increase serotonin levels, as low serotonin levels are associated with depression, anxiety, obesity, and headaches.

Reduce the products of stress hormones.

Improve sleep.

Increase energy levels.

Enhance the body's immunity against diseases.

Self-soothing techniques

See which meditation style suits you best

There are many different types of meditation. When you can't stop eating or need to relieve stress, you can try the following techniques. See which technique works best for you and provides the most help.

Focused meditation: concentrating attention on an object

One way to meditate is to focus all your attention on a single point. This point can be an image or an object. First, sit quietly and focus all your attention on this object. Observe it. Describe it to yourself. Focusing on a detail of the object, such as a part of the object or the tip of a candle flame, can often be helpful.

For example, Brooke is an emotional eater. She combats her emotional eating by focusing her attention on a photograph of Paris in her living room instead of staying in the kitchen. When she begins to feel the urge to eat under pressure, she firmly focuses on the photograph, concentrating all her attention on the top of the Eiffel Tower. It's a bit like zooming in on a camera lens. She confines her consciousness solely to the image, rather than focusing on food images in her mind. If food thoughts arise, she frankly acknowledges the thought and then says goodbye to it. Afterward, she refocuses her attention on a meditation point. She maintains this state of attention until the meditation point calms her down.

Sound meditation: Focusing your attention on sound

In sound meditation, focus your attention on sound. Prayer can guide your mind away from any negative self-suggestions filling your brain. Those statements that overwhelm you, such as "I can't stand this feeling," are negative self-suggestions. A prayer can be a sound, a word, a phrase, or even a sentence. But how can focusing your attention on prayer help emotional eaters?

It works by actively focusing your attention on calming words. This focus contrasts sharply with random thoughts in your mind, which often encourage you to eat, like the thought, "I must eat a candy bar right now."

To begin, close your eyes and repeat a sound or phrase. Say it aloud. In Hindi, "om" is described as the vibration of all living things. Notice what your mouth shape is like when you make this sound; notice how your body and lips vibrate when you make this sound. If you don't like the sound or it doesn't work for you, try more familiar sounds or words. You can use phrases like "calm," "I'm fine," "I allow," "love," and "I'm tolerant of things."

After repeating this prayer several times, you'll find your mind becomes focused, and you can concentrate on making the sound. If you're thinking about your account balance or other worries, it will be difficult to continue repeating or chanting the prayer. But this method is worth the effort. Essentially, prayer helps calm your internal dialogue (which can increase your stress). Once the dialogue is calmed, you can think more rationally about food and then explore better ways to soothe yourself.

Mindfulness meditation: Focusing attention on thoughts

This type of meditation involves observing and paying attention to your thoughts and emotions. When you practice this meditation, focus your attention on your thoughts, rather than letting it wander. By carefully examining how you think and why you think about food, you will gain a better understanding of the emotions you are trying to calm. If you identify what is truly bothering you, you will be able to adopt more effective methods to calm yourself down.

Take a minute to do this exercise. You can also do it if you need more time. Stop what you're doing and sit quietly. Focus all your attention on your thoughts. Then observe the thoughts moving through your mind. Take deep breaths. If closing your eyes helps you concentrate better, then close your eyes.

Now, recall a recent instance of overeating, or you might use this method when experiencing emotional eating. Observe your thoughts and emotions about food cravings in a non-judgmental manner.

To better utilize this meditation, you can imagine yourself as an observer in a procession, watching from a distance. Each thought you have is written on its own floating board. Perhaps you have thoughts like, "I need chocolate! Why shouldn't I eat chocolate? I'm a failure when it comes to healthy eating." Imagine these thoughts are written on a floating board. Observe this floating board as it approaches you, passes you, and disappears into the distance. Allow your thoughts and emotions to be as they are. However, we often try to stop or change our thoughts, constantly telling ourselves, "Stop thinking like that."

Instead, ask yourself with a gentle, open curiosity, “I wonder why I think I need chocolate to feel better. What happened today that made this thought enter my consciousness?” Now, imagine placing the next thought on the next floating platform. Observe which thoughts continue to travel through your consciousness. Are they guilt? Irrationality? Or anger? Observing individual thoughts slows down your automatic thought processes and also helps you observe yourself from a distance so you don't get caught up in food cravings.