Our best kept secret for better digestion...
We all know that suffering from digestive problems such as gas, bloating, reflux, stomach cramps, diarrhea, constipation, irritable bowel syndrome or inflammatory bowel disease can seriously hinder our daily functioning and make us miserable. Your gastrointestinal (GI) tract acts as your body’s food processor and if it’s blocked, overloaded, polluted with toxins such as food additives, pesticides and preservatives, or otherwise irritated, it is going to let you know how it feels by having one of the reactions listed above. Your GI tract first breaks down your food by the mechanical process of chewing and then by a multitude of complex chemical processes that extract nutrients to feed your system and expel toxins. The best way to ensure that we are helping make it easy for our bodies to digest our food is to chew A LOT so that our food mixes with our digestive juices so it can easily be digested and better absorbed for optimal nutrition. So what is our best kept secret to better digestion? CHEWING! Believe it or not chewing is one of the most important aids to our digestion and it’s also one we often take for granted so much so that we sometimes just swallow our food whole, forgetting to grind our teeth altogether! Learning how to chew your food properly (up to 30 times per bite) will help you extract the maximum nutrients from your food and get your digestive juices flowing right AND help keep your weight down and your tummy flat. How? Because if you eat healthy foods packed with nutrients that you chew properly with each bite, you will be able to recognize once you feel full and you will therefore eat less! Our clients find that learning how-to chew helps to: ● Sense intuitively when you are full ● Gain way more satisfaction from eating ● Develop a healthier relationship with food In order to get optimal digestion AND to get in the habit of chewing, try chewing each bite of food at the beginning of your next meal 30 times. (Putting your fork down and breathing between bites will help.) Even if you only have 5 minutes for a meal, let the chewing relax you and use it almost as a meditation. That way you’ll enjoy the whole spectrum of tastes and aromas that make up the meal, trigger cephalic phase digestion, and your body and brain will be satisfied even with a quickie. You've got this and we are here to help! Your KAHA TAHI Team
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Breath and life...
Breath is considered our life force. We check for breathing when someone's in physical crisis. We tell ourselves, "take a deep breath, calm down" when feeling our stress levels rise. We teach breathing techniques to expectant mothers, to athletes, and to those working through trauma. Intuitively, we know how critical and how miraculous the breath is. Yet many of us have actually learned to breathe in ways that are not only unnatural but unhealthy. Breathing should be easy. Deepak Chopra describes it as "the body being breathed" (2010). I see people in yoga regularly force the breath out during the natural abdominal expansion and gasp for shallow breaths during contractions. They are trying so hard to complete the exercise and regulate their breathing, a natural process, that they are literally fighting their own nervous systems. Talk about stress! If we can learn to relax and allow our bodies to "be breathed" we can have an immediate impact on our overall health physically and emotionally. A study published in 2011 found that five minutes, just five, of slow, deep breathing--roughly six deep breaths per minute--reduced blood pressure and heart rate in hypertensive patients (Bhavanni et al). Most people take between 10-16 breaths per minute during regular activity and 6-8 during periods of rest. Most people also use only the upper third of their lungs due to stress--actually holding the breath to a degree subconsciously--and even posture. Beth Shaw (2016) describes the modern lifestyle of sitting for long stretches driving, texting, working on our computers, watching our screens as a forward flexion lifestyle. It is nearly impossible to take an actual deep breath in this posture. We can't change our posture or our breathing overnight, but we can start today making small changes. Find a time today, whether while driving your children to school, prior to blessing the meal as a family, before you enter that high-pressure meeting, or to prepare yourself for bed. Set a timer for just one minute at a time at first. During that minute, practice what is called a three-part breath. A Simple Three Part Breath Has Profound Effects: Sit tall. Inhale your breath deeply into your abdomen then your rib cage, then your chest, then your throat. There is no need to hold onto the breath now. Just release it in a slow exhale, completely letting everything go. Notice if you attempted to use your shoulders to initiate the breath instead of your abdomen. That's a symptom of a flexion lifestyle, and you noticing allows you to make a change. On your next breath, focus on beginning in your abdomen, filling it deeply with breath. Feel the difference. Celebrate your progress. Repeat this several times in one-minute practices. Try this for one week. Each week add one more minute until you are practicing this simple breath in five-minute sessions. This simple practice lowers blood pressure and heart rate, decreases anxiety, relaxes your body and mind together, improves concentration and awareness, and even begins to strengthen your core muscles. Breath is the life force. Let it fill and heal you as you prepare yourself for the back-to-school season and maybe you'll be able to hold onto some of that summer relaxation even begin to feel renewed with each breath not just each vacation. Tip of the month: Mindful Eating...
In the modern world we eat for convenience rather than for nutrition. We eat for instant gratification rather than long-term health benefits. Can you imagine learning a new way of slow eating in which you actually get to experience the tastes and textures of your food rather than wolfing it down in a hurry or snacking on the go? So what is mindful eating? Mindful eating means taking the time to honor your food by choosing high quality, organic food, preparing it with care and eating it slowly and mindfully using your five senses to really enjoy it. It means allocating quiet time to prepare and enjoy eating your meal without rushing or multitasking at the same time. Mindful eating is a way of saying to yourself: “I respect my body enough to be mindful of what I put into it and of the way I eat.” Think of this type of eating as a meditation. It means choosing to be present with your food and the way you eat it. Eating mindfully can help to:
It is time for you to practice mindful eating if you answer "YES" to any of these statements:
Now, slow down, use your 5 senses when you eat, and make eating less rushed and more enjoyable. You've got this and we are here to help! |
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