Do you ever correlate your stress to how your tummy feels, how you digest food or how you eat? Do you run to the kitchen impulsively without really feeling hungry but just need to snack? I I totally get it. I have been full on snack mode many times and there is almost always a good reason for why it happens. Now if it is stress, I have learned and coached some tools that help avoid that major snack binge night. Stress is a nervous system reaction and therefore mindfulness and intention helps to calm the very triggers that do not support you. So it is all about Tricking your Nervous System(NS) to think you are relaxed.
DID YOU KNOW – The communication with the brain to other parts of our body such as our stomach can play a key role in feedback responses. The stomach is considered to be the second brain, which is why poor digestion or digestive illnesses often lead to headaches.
The 6-5-7 breath shifts you from a state of low digestive activity to full digestive force.
- At every meal or snack, any time food is about to pass across your lips ask yourself, “Am I about to eat under stress?” If the answer is yes, pause. Then take 10 long slow deep breaths using this simple method.
- Inhale for a count of 6, hold at the top for a count of 5 and exhale for a count of 7. Let the exhale be a bit longer than the inhale.
- As you continue this conscious breathing, scan the senses. The scent of the air in your nose, the red and oranges of your eyelids, your taste buds, the feeling of your butt on the chair and your feet spread wide on the earth. Inhale 6… hold 5… and exhale 7. Keep breathing and scanning, tuning in with a heightened awareness. Repeat 10x.
- As a health coach, I have coached many tools for de-stressing and resetting the body. Read and follow my other health & wellness blogs to learn more. I will elaborate on the “MOFA’s “my motivating factors”- the end goals and desires you really want.