In school, lunch breaks meant sitting with your group of friends, sharing your dabba over morsels of gossip and fears of physics practicals. Even if we were talking, we were still focused on eating, with no instagram notifications distracting us or a new episode pulling us in as we mindlessly chomp on papad after papad. Somewhere between then and now and our hectic lives demanding us to be chronically online, we have forgotten how to leave the multiple screens surrounding us and actually look at the plate of food, see the colours, take in the smells and enjoy the taste of what we are eating.
The lack of mindful eating has led us to eat out of boredom, speed eat through our meals like we’re running a marathon or overeating because we never feel satisfied. You may think it doesn’t matter as much but in reality, it is doing more damage than you can imagine.
The practice of mindful eating refers to the consciousness awareness while eating food which attunes your brain to sensory experiences, hunger and satiety cues. When you eat without any distractions, it enables you to actively recognise when you are full which prevents overeating and helps you recognise patterns of emotional eating.
“When you’re actually mindfully eating, you’re a little more careful about what you’re eating, how you’re eating, so this helps to improve your digestion. You also feel calmer when you eat, you have better relationships with food. This also reduces any kind of overeating that you may do. Also your body does not actually need a lot of food the way we pump in food into the body. So if you’re mindful about it and you’re more self-aware, you know when you’re hungry, when you’re not, and you can eat accordingly,” says Mumbai based psychologist and special educator Alisha Lalljee.
She also explains how being reliant on screens while eating can lead to it becoming a habit. “It can become a pattern wherein you just get so used to the screen and sometimes even if you’re looking at your phone you just start nibbling. And the screen generally would lead to amplification of your appetite, even if it’s not intentional, it will just become an automatic process.”
But with screens governing 90% of our time, we tend to miss out on these cues thereby rewiring the way we are eating and experiencing food. This could lead to long term issues with weight and overall well being.
While we’re more informed than ever about diets, macros, and superfoods, meals have become more like background activity to screens. It is no longer seen as an activity to take time out for, it is seen as something you can easily juggle while replying to emails, watching reels, or finishing “just one more episode.” The result? We’re full, but not quite satisfied.
As Lalljee explains, when we have screens around, we either eat too fast or too slow which affects digestion, “You don’t know whether you’ve eaten right, sometimes you’ve forgotten how much you’ve eaten because you haven’t really concentrated on your food. You aren’t chewing well and then your digestion goes for a toss. It can lead to stomach issues like bloating, nausea, constipation because of lack of chewing.”
Mindful eating isn’t a trend or a rigid set of rules. It’s simply the practice of paying attention to your food, your body, and the act of eating itself. And in a world where attention is constantly being pulled in a hundred directions, that practice feels more relevant and important to incorporate in your life than ever. All you have to do is set your phones and screen aside and look at the food that you are eating. But how do you do that?
Creating small, intentional pauses can help shift this. It doesn’t mean you need to overhaul your routine overnight or sit in silence for every meal, but it does mean making small changes.
Ditch the screens
It can start with something as simple as putting your phone away for the first ten minutes of your meal. Those ten minutes are often enough to reconnect with what you’re eating, the textures, flavours, temperature, all the things that make food enjoyable in the first place.
Put your phone on silent
Keep your device far away from where you are sitting to eat and if needed put the ringer off so the constant pinging or calls won’t distract you.
Don’t rush through the meal
Another overlooked aspect of mindful eating is pace. Screens speed everything up. You scroll fast, consume content fast, and unknowingly, eat fast. But your body takes time to register fullness. Eating slowly isn’t about being overly deliberate; it’s about giving your body a chance to catch up. Putting your spoon down between bites, chewing properly, or even just taking a breath midway through your meal can make a noticeable difference.
Change your physical environment
There’s also something to be said about the physical environment of eating. When every meal happens at your desk, your brain starts associating that space with both work and food, which can make it harder to switch off. Creating even a small distinction — moving to a different chair, eating at the dining table, or stepping onto a balcony — can help signal that this is a moment to pause, not multitask.
Have fixed meal timings
Fix your meal timings so your body can fall into a rhythm. Notice when you feel hungry and try to eat around those timings everyday because that is when the enzymes in your body are demanding food. This also ensures that the chance of overeating is less.
When you start paying attention, food tastes better. You notice when you’re full. You begin to enjoy meals rather than rush through them. And over time, that sense of satisfaction carries beyond the plate, it becomes a small but meaningful way to slow down in an otherwise fast-paced day. So the next time you sit down to eat, put your phone aside, take a breath, and actually taste your food. Excel sheets and messages can wait for half an hour while you replenish, take a breather and enjoy your meal. Trust us it is the reset you didn’t know you needed.
