Yoga and Finding Contentment for Better Eating

Practicing yoga affects the body, but it also affects the mind. Yoga builds strength, resiliency, balance, mobility, calm, groundedness, and more. Everything you practice on the mat comes with you off the mat. You might find interactions with other people go smoothly after a yoga asana practice or a few minutes of mindful breathing.

There are principles that you practice on the mat while you are doing poses. You commonly practice principles such as Non-Harming (Ahimsa), Discipline (Tapas), and Self-Study (Svadhyaya), though you may or may not be fully cognizant that you are practicing them. The Yamas and Niyamas discuss these and other principles, as they are the first two limbs of yoga (out of 8–read more in the box below).

Santosha, or Contentment, and Brahmacharya, or Non-Excess/Enough, are two of these principles that I feel can have a profound effect on eating.

Scarcity mindset

If you grew up with restrictions around food, due to poverty, having a large family, or even seeing certain foods as “good” or “bad,” then you might struggle with food. Whether or not you had an eating disorder, you might have succumbed to varying levels of disordered eating.

If you’ve ever worried about if you’d have enough food, you may be saddled with a scarcity mindset. This alone can lead to overeating, or eating when you aren’t hungry. I grew up in a house without junk food of any sort. Desserts were rare, so when we had them, I had little control over myself and would eat as much as I could/was allowed.

My mom used to hide cookies in the kitchen because she knew if I found them, I would eat the whole thing. I didn’t know this at the time, but I succumbed to a scarcity mindset over sweets. I didn’t know when I would get to have these delicious foods, so I would eat as much as I could when I had the opportunity.

Even into adulthood, I still struggled with this for many years, until I realized that scarcity was no longer a problem. I could buy things when I wanted them and I could always get more. It was then that I began shifting my relationship with these sweet foods.

Santosha/Contentment

I spent years numbing myself with food, seeing it as a means to an end. When I was bingeing on cookies, or ice cream, etc, I was using food to stuff down an emotion that I didn’t want to feel. At no point during that time was I actually tasting, let alone, enjoying the food. I would just inhale it, feeling overly full and physically uncomfortable before I realized what I had done.

Practicing the 2nd Niyama, Santosha, or Contentment, creates a different tone when it comes to eating sweets, or treats. They can be the same foods, but here I am talking about your relationship to “forbidden” or “bad” foods.

I put these words in quotes because there are really aren’t any good or bad foods, there are only foods that fuel your body and there are foods that fuel your joy. The key to handling these joyful foods is to find contentment with them.

Power of permission to step out of shame

Give yourself permission to have them, in a serving size, occasionally. I have Treat Night in my house once a week, which has worked for my family since my kids were small. Everyone has full permission to eat whatever they deemed a treat on a specific day that was chosen ahead of time. My older son chose Monday nights and it has been that way for more than 10 years now.

Permission to eat takes shame out of the equation. When you get stuck in a shame spiral, it feels terrible. Eating is a common way to try not to feel shame (drugs, alcohol, sex, shopping, are a few other ways that I don’t recommend either). The problem with shame is it doesn’t go away through this method. It gets buried and comes out later, bigger and louder, usually at an inconvenient time.

Removing shame returns the power to you. You get to decide what to eat and how much to eat. You also get to enjoy the food. Seeking contentment with food feels different from seeking numbness. When you feel numb, you feel nothing. Not good, not bad, just numb. Contentment feels calm and settled, it feels open and relaxed. I will take that feeling over numbness anyday.

Notice your food

Once you give yourself permission to eat, give yourself permission to taste and savor your food. See the food in front of you. Take in the colors and textures with your eyes, maybe there are pleasant aromas rising to your nose.

Take a bite and feel the food in your mouth, the delicious flavors dancing on your tongue. Chew your food and delight in the flavors and textures. Don’t swallow too soon, allow yourself to be with what is happening in your mouth.

This is where Santosha/Contentment comes in. When you eat this way, whether eating a treat or your regular meal, you are allowed to feel the same level of contentment. You don’t need to hurry through eating, you can feel calm and relaxed as you enjoy whatever is happening in your mouth.

That relaxed state will affect your digestion as well. When the body experiences stress, three processes are down-regulated: immunity, reproduction, and digestion. None of these are needed for survival, so the body diverts its energy to processes that will help you escape the saber-toothed tiger. You may only have a deadline, but unfortunately the body treats both situations the same. Feeling relaxed and contented while eating encourages proper digestion with less bloating and fewer bowel issues.

Brahmacharya/Non-Excess or Enough

Paired with Santosha, this 4th Yama helps with feeling satisfied with food and not overeating. If you have a scarcity mindset, this one can be challenging, because what the body and mind think is “enough” can vary.

The scarcity mindset creates anxiety around food, worrying if you will have enough to satisfy your needs. But what is enough? It will be different for each person and each meal. Enough leaves you feeling satisfied, but not full. It takes about 20 minutes for the brain to catch up with the stomach, so eating slowly and mindfully will keep you connected to your hunger cues.

Enough is another way of saying non-excess. You don’t want to eat until you feel like exploding, you want to give your body the fuel it requires to do all the things you do in a day. Eating too much feels uncomfortable, both physically and emotionally. Eating enough leads to feeling satisfied and contented.

Listen to your body

Listening to the body means tuning into your physical sensations. Hunger is a normal, natural cue that tells you it’s time to eat. After each bite, notice how you feel. If you are still hungry, take another bite. If you no longer feel hungry, stop. Your body isn’t what causes you to overeat, it’s your mind.

Eating mindlessly without paying attention will cause you to overeat. Eating to numb your feelings will also cause overeating. If you eat mindfully, intentionally, and listen to the cues your body gives you, you will eat less, yet get exactly what you need.

A literature review of 68 intervention and observational studies on mindfulness and mindful eating found that these strategies improved eating behaviors such as slowing down the pace of a meal and recognizing feelings of fullness and greater control over eating. [8] Slower eating was associated with eating less food, as participants felt fuller sooner. Mindfulness and mindful eating interventions appeared most successful in reducing binge eating and emotional eating. ~https://nutritionsource.hsph.harvard.edu/mindful-eating/

Using Yoga to Support Healthy Habits

The more regulated you are, the easier it is to have control over your eating habits. Yoga reduces stress and anxiety, leaving you more regulated when you get off your mat. When you apply yogic principles to how you approach food, you will make choices that serve you so that you feel more comfortable in your body and less shame.

Intentional Eating: Finding Peace and Balance in Your Relationship with Food is a 6 week online coaching program to support your shift to feeling in control with food. This is not a diet, it is a mindset reset to put your power back into your hands.

The biggest shift in mindset has been about slowing down and being more present with my beautiful food, giving myself a moment to check in, feeling the gratitude or feeling the not-so-good with certain foods/behaviors. This has been helpful in keeping “eating for numbing” in check. “In that moment of pause, you’re in power.” THIS is the message on the Post-it inside my pantry door 🙂 …I loved the conversations and feeling of community that Janine fosters. Being with people with similar frustrations allowed us to be open and vulnerable. I also loved hearing and talking about the yogic principles that Janine shared with us and how to practice them in relation to food and cravings.~K.P.

Click the button below to find out more or to sign up! Space is limited to 5 people.