One of my current goals is once again to slow myself down when eating. My goodness, when I sit down to eat, its as if it were my last meal and someone is trying to pinch it from me. I know I have to chew my food to a mush, so I do that as quickly as I possibly can, and not as thoroughly as I should. So my poor stomach is still dealing with lumps of food shot down into it at highest possible speed, and my jaws are working way too hard.
This means that when I go to bed at night, I look about 7 months pregnant.
I take my HCl, digestive enzymes and regular probiotics (not the Yakult rubbish either).
Gazing at my gut in despair, it occurred to me that the cause still lay in my eating.
So now I chew away more gently. I put my knife and fork down between mouthfuls. I try not not worry about how long it is all taking. And I sit on my chair until I have finished – another habit I have is to leap up with my last mouthful in my mouth and get on with the Next Thing to do. Hopeless.
And things are looking better when I go to bed. Well, at least it is only 4 months pregnant. It did take a few days to get there.
Another good thing to do is warm the tummy. I have a mini electric blanket I put over my tummy when I get into bed. Very calming and good for the guts and for the brain. A hot water bottle would also do the trick.
It is much easier for the gut to break down well chewed food. And in order to digest our food, we do have to be in a relaxed state, called parasympathetic. The opposite of parasympathetic is sympathetic or fight or flight mode. If we are wrestling with a pig, this is hardly the time to sit down and eat dinner, since we may imminently be about to become dinner. However, being Mighty Mouse, we manage to overcome the pig and return home to fight another day. And as we relax, we can enjoy our pig’s trotter for dinner with plentiful vegetables.