Mindful living and eating for Millennials
Chelsea Evans, Mindfully Made
What’s top of your gratitude list this week?
This week I am grateful for my friends and my family, the unwavering support and love they show me. As well as the sunshine streaming through my blinds in the morning, my warm and inviting home as well as gratitude for my body and everything it allows me to do.
What's your interpretation of the relationship between food and mindfulness, and its importance?
For me, food has become a tool for self-love. Food can be a way that we nourish ourselves, and part of that nourishment is making it a mindful experience. I named my business Mindfully Made for this very reason because I believe wholeheartedly that the intention we bring to everything, whether it is making food or eating it, determines our experience. When we eat mindfully, our body can send the appropriate signals to our brains to let it know that we are full. Mindfulness in itself will always be beneficial, but in the case of food, it is even more important, so that we can hear the messages our body is sending to us. Being mindful may help avoid overeating and promote satiety and a bring about a joy from eating our food.
How can we use food to bring more mindfulness into our busy days?
I think that being busy calls for even more attention to be placed on mindfulness. It can seem counter-intuitive in our society to slow down more often when we have more to get done. But in my experience, it is the best way to be productive when you are busy. In order to survive, we require nutrients from food. So we have an opportunity, at least three meals a day, to practice mindfulness. We can practice mindfulness through food by sitting down to eat, at a table, and putting away phones, screens and other distractions. The first thing we can do is smell our food and notice how it makes us feel. The smell from food that is being prepared or about to be eaten, stimulates the cephalic phase of digestion and prepares our body to utilise our food effectively. After smelling the food, we can give thanks or express gratitude for what is on our plate, before taking the first bite. Something I find helpful for mindful eating is taking small mouthfuls, and using my hands, or chopsticks can help slow the pace that we eat. Eating meals with friends or around the table with family, can also promote a mindful eating experience, as talking and laughing means we eat slower and can hear our bodies when they say we are full.
Any exciting projects you're working on at the moment?
I am very excited to be compiling people's stories into a book about anxiety. I have always been passionate about mental health, particularly anxiety, as I experience it often myself. I reached out on social media after a realisation I had that a collective voice about anxiety, may help people feel less alone in the isolating nature of this condition or experience. The response blew my mind and I have received heart-wrenchingly honest, and vulnerable accounts of people's experiences with anxiety and anxiety disorders. Stigma arises from not speaking about an issue, and so I choose to promote a dialogue around anxiety as often as I can, in order to dissolve the stigma and normalise this as a human experience. This compilation of stories will be released next year (2019) and its progress is updated on my IG @mindfullymadewellness. I am also very excited to be completing my naturopathic and herbal medicine degree this year, after studying for coming up to three years.
What’s the best piece advice you've ever been given for looking after your wellbeing?
The best advice I have heard, and continue to give to myself, is listen to your body. You will always know best, what is right for you. There is a lot of ease that comes when we have an inherent trust in ourselves and our bodies. Trust in the intuitive moments, you may feel like skipping the gym and going to walk along the beach. Instead of questioning this, or being too rigid in routine, try listening to that part of yourself that is being called by the ocean. It may give you what you've been looking for. Wellbeing does not stay still, in my opinion. It grows, shifts and changes as we do. Looking after our wellbeing may look like a warm bath with essential oils and an early night, and at another time it may be ordering that pizza when you're out with friends and eating it without any guilt. When you listen to what you need as an individual, you start to fine tune yourself to navigate what works for you, and what doesn't. Wellbeing does not just exist in one area either, it is physical, spiritual, mental, emotional and more. Wellbeing can come from eating beautiful fresh produce, and it can come from saying kind words to yourself when you look in the mirror. You have the opportunity to look after yourself in every moment, and we also always have the opportunity to choose again. We are only human, after all.
When you’re feeling stressed, overwhelmed or unfocused, what do you do to bring yourself back to balance?
Personally, I find meditation extremely helpful when I am stressed, or if I am swept up in anxiety or overwhelm. I will do a 10-20 minute guided meditation, I like apps such as Insight Timer, Headspace and I enjoy Deepak Chopra and Oprah's meditation offerings. Of course, in the moments when I am most stressed, meditation becomes the hardest thing. If I need to simplify it, I will take five mindful breaths into my belly, and draw my attention down into my feet to feel grounded. I use crystals to help me with stress and overwhelm, holding a smokey quartz, or a sodalite can shift my vibration at that moment. I am also a very strong advocate of journaling and I write one to three pages of purely my stream of consciousness, every day. Writing what is going on in your head can help to diffuse the high emotions and stress you may be feeling. I also see a counsellor once a week, which proves invaluably helpful for me in managing stress. Essential oils such as lavender, frankincense, bergamot, orange and lemon just to name a few, can be beneficial in times of stress. You can diffuse these oils, or rub them on your temples, wrist or feet, or even do an inhalation with boiling water and a towel over your head. Leaning into support such as friends and family always helps to put things in perspective too, having a reflection on how well you are doing, and everything you may have overcome in the past can help you move forward and through stressful periods in your life.
We are advocates of play and having fun to reduce stress and anxiety. What play do you inject into your life?
Play is such an important part of life! I define play as something that you do, that you love, that is not for any specific purpose. These are the things that you lose track of time doing, that you could do for hours. In order to be productive, we need play. It allows us to regenerate and be completely present with one thing. Switching our minds out of working and doing, and into a state of play, has been shown to boost productivity, as well as overall wellbeing. My form of play is dancing crazily in my room, blasting music. It is colouring in with all the colours of the rainbow, drawing and painting, not trying to make it look like anything in particular. Play is also yoga, just in my house, or acro yoga with another person, making shapes and trying new acro tricks, with a big dose of laughter. I find that I can channel play best when I am around children. Children have a carefree, innocent and playful attitude toward life naturally. Rolling around on the floor, building a castle with blocks, moulding Play-doh into all sorts of shapes or doing arts and crafts with kids are great ways to have fun.
What’s one area you currently working on improving in your life?
One area for me that I am working on improving is my relationship with myself and my mental hygiene. I choose a path of self-love, and also know that it is a path that we never quite get to the end of. There is no mastering self-love, it is a humbling practice that we choose every day, in every moment. I am paying closer attention to the thoughts I think about myself and then asking myself if I would say those same things to my friends. I am working on being kinder to myself, and then kinder again. We can be our own biggest critics sometimes, and I believe it's beneficial to strengthen and cultivate more compassion for ourselves. Self-care and self-love have a direct impact, for me personally, on my anxiety. The way I feel about myself determines the attitude I show up to life with, therefore, focusing on the very thoughts I think about myself, allows me to choose activities and thoughts that uplift me, rather than bring me down.
If you could recommend just one habit or ritual to someone starting out on their health and wellbeing journey, what would it be?
The one habit or consistent practice I would recommend to everyone would be meditation. It does not need to be scary or unachievable. It can be sitting and breathing for five minutes when you first wake up. There are so many resources for meditation, and there is so much more research emerging about the beneficial effects that stopping to be mindful can have on our health. Think of meditation as a shower for your mind and soul. You may wake up and shower in order to clean your body, but meditation can clean your mind. It frees up space for you to be aware of thoughts, and feel more grounded and ready to walk into a new day. Try to redefine meditation, into something that works and sits well with you. We are given a lot of images and ideas about what meditation is, that it is a monk sitting for hours on a mountaintop, or it is for those with the luxury of endless time. But it is something that each of us can do at any moment in time. It requires absolutely nothing but yourself, and it can provide the most liberation and clarity. So find your own form of meditation, it could even be walking or writing, an activity that is mindful, and that you bring yourself back to when thoughts drift off. Commit yourself to a daily practice of meditation and you begin to form a whole new relationship to yourself and the world around you.
Describe your perfect dream day, if there were no limitations……
My perfect dream day would involve quite simply, all my incredible friends, my family, and those who I love, gathered somewhere in nature, an abundance of fresh food, and music being played, with laughter and sunshine. Swimming in the ocean, or climbing trees, or lying in the grass. Having all those simple, and important things that make me feel like I am truly alive.
Any parting advice for how to welcome in healthy, happy, mindful living?
My parting advice would be to practice loving yourself first. Give yourself the love that you are looking for out there. We are the people that we get to be with through our entire lives, so let's give more time to ourselves. Being in a relationship with yourself cultivates much more compassion and love for others, and it also means you can practice resilience by being your own support or being able to ask for what you need when you need support from others. Forgive yourself more often, and allow yourself to be human. Celebrate yourself and all that you do, do not wait. Celebration is a form of gratitude, it attracts in more and more good to be celebrated.
Chelsea is currently seeing clients as a student naturopath and has appointments available later in the year at the student clinic. If you have any interest booking an appointment, you can email her at chelseanaturopathy@gmail.com