How mindful eating can soothe your digestive woes.
The way you eat has an enormous impact on your digestion.
So if you struggle with gas, bloating, abdominal discomfort, diarrhea, constipation, or other digestive upsets, mindful eating can make all the difference.
Once you incorporate mindful eating into your daily life, you’ll notice positive changes in your digestion and overall health.
And you can take those changes to the next level for the ultimate in digestive calm and comfort by adding in the right supports.
What Is Mindful Eating?
Mindful eating is all about bringing attention and intention to your meals. It’s much more than which foods you choose, though that’s a piece of the puzzle. Mindful eating encompasses how you eat, why you eat, how much you eat, and the awareness you experience as you eat.[1]
It’s a practice that involves being fully present at every meal. It requires that you pay attention to your own internal cues, like hunger and fullness, as well as external cues, like the aromas, and even the advertisements we see in our everyday lives. It encourages gratitude for the food you’re eating, which can improve your overall experience.
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You can engage in mindful eating by adopting practices such as:
- Turning off electronics while eating
- Expressing gratitude for your food and its preparation
- Engaging all of your sense when you eat by noting smells, colors, and tastes
- Slowing down and paying attention to each mouthful
- Making mindful food choices that support your health goals
When you practice mindful eating, you’ll become more in tune with your internal cues so they can guide your consumption rather than reacting to external cues. This journey will lead you to make more positive food choices for yourself… and that will lead to improvements in your physical and emotional well-being.
Why Mindful Eating Matters
Mindful eating promotes more than a fully enjoyable eating experience. It brings a heightened awareness of your body’s sensations, so you better understand your needs and can adapt your eating habits based on what’s truly best for your body. It gives you a chance to listen to your body’s signals and tune out external cues that contribute to negative eating patterns.
This can help you overcome unsupportive behaviors such as:[2]
- Emotional eating
- Eating too much
- Distracted eating
- Rushed eating
- Automatic eating
- Eating unhealthy foods
In addition, mindful eating affects digestion. Because how you feel while you’re eating impacts every step of the process.
Your Mental State Directly Affects Digestion
How you feel has a direct impact on your digestive system. That’s thanks to an internal superhighway known as the gut-brain axis (GBA). The GBA carries two-way communication between your brain and your gut.[3]
When you’re stressed or feeling heightened emotions, your digestive system gets “shut down” messages from your brain. Stress causes digestive distress due to the natural fight-or-flight reaction.[4] During stress, your body gets the message to shift all energy to your arms and legs so you can fight or flee a dangerous situation—everything else takes a back seat.
So if you’re stressed while you’re eating, your digestive system won’t work normally.[5] Everything will either be stalled, stopped, or sped up. And that can lead to:
- bloating
- gas
- abdominal pain
- leaky gut
- constipation
- diarrhea
- dysbiosis (when beneficial gut bacteria get crowded out by pathogens)
- increased inflammation in the stomach and intestines
Alternatively, when you’re calm, the brain sends “rest and digest” messages to your body. This allows you to fully relax and digest food that way your body is designed to. A sense of calmness improves digestion by allowing for smooth breakdown of food and better nutrient absorption.
And that’s where mindful eating can make all the difference.
How Mindful Eating Improves Digestion
Mindful eating acts as a stress reducer. As you focus fully on the act of eating, it engages your parasympathetic nervous system—the part that turns on rest-and-digest mode to calm your body. That switch promotes optimal digestion leading to:[6]
- more complete nutrient absorption
- decreased digestive issues
- increased digestive comfort
- improved gut health
- efficient weight management
- more satisfying eating experiences
Practicing mindful eating also encourages better food choices[7], less emotional eating, and less overeating[8], all of which contribute to you feeling more comfortable, vibrant, and energetic every day.
The Right Support Can Strengthen Your Efforts
Mindful eating on its own can improve your digestive health. And when you add in the right supports, it will dramatically increase your digestive efficiency and comfort.
The first type of support helps manage stress better and promotes a state of calm. This can include things like mindful meditation, deep breathing, journaling, and other external activities. And you can also help your body maintain a sense of peaceful calm from the inside out.
A unique probiotic strain called Bifidobacterium longum 1714™ helps your body turn down the volume on stress so you have a chance to fully relax.[9] It’s been shown to help your body mount a healthy stress response, so it can switch off fight-or-flight mode and transition into the more serene rest-and-digest phase.
Ongoing research shows that this naturally calming probiotic supports mindful eating goals by:
- helping the body manage stress responses more effectively[9]
- calming negative emotions in people dealing with social stress[10]
- increasing the brain’s theta wave activity to promote calmness[10]
- promoting focus even during stressful times[11]
- supporting emotional well-being and improving stress responses[12]
The second support arm targets the gut, where nutrient absorption and waste elimination takes place. There are two key players here: the gut microbiome and the mucosal gut barrier.
A healthy gut microbiome contains a diverse population of trillions of beneficial probiotic bacteria along with some pathogens that are easily kept under control. A strong, secure mucosal gut barrier allows only healthy substances—like nutrients and antioxidants—to pass into your bloodstream while keeping harmful bacteria and toxins safely locked inside to be eliminated.
Stress shifts the balance in the gut microbiome, harming probiotic bacteria while encouraging pathogens to quickly multiply. That leads to dysbiosis, where pathogens have control of the gut. Those pathogens produce compounds called LPS toxins that threaten the gut barrier. LPS toxins attack the gut barrier until they weaken it enough to pass through causing leaky gut.[13] And when you have a leaky gut, pathogens and toxins can move into your bloodstream. That increases stress levels in the body that can lead to digestive issues.[14]
Research shows that a specific combination of spore probiotics including Bacillus indicus HU36, Bacillus subtilis HU58, Bacillus clausii, and Bacillus coagulans supported a diverse population of beneficial gut bacteria.[15] The probiotic blend helped stabilize a healthy gut microbiome.
Those same four spore probiotics also help protect the gut barrier. During a clinical trial scientists found people who took that combination spore probiotics had a 42% reduction in LPS toxins after eating… while people taking a placebo saw a 36% increase in LPS toxins.[16] The researchers concluded that these spore probiotics could reduce the effects of leaky gut.
These simple supports work together with mindful eating to support smooth, efficient, comfortable digestion and optimal nutrient absorption.
Just Thrive Stress Support Products
Bolster Your Mindful Eating Efforts with Just Thrive
Mindful eating is all about bringing intention, attention, and focus to every meal to support healthy digestion. A healthy gut, a strong gut barrier, and effective stress management all contribute to that effort, making mindful eating much more effective.
Just Calm is powered by Bifidobacterium longum 1714™ to support optimal stress management, which is key for digestive health. Adding Just Calm into your daily routine can help you manage stress like a pro and support mindful eating.
Just Thrive Probiotic is powered by clinically studied spore probiotics that deliver unmatched support to your gut microbiome and gut barrier. It contains four proven spore strains:
- Bacillus indicus HU36™
- Bacillus subtilis HU58™
- Bacillus clausii
- Bacillus coagulans
A well-balanced gut microbiome and strong gut barrier contribute to digestive comfort in further support of mindful eating.
Not quite sure if Just Calm and Just Thrive Probiotic are right for you? We can help. We’re confident that when you use each as directed, you’ll enjoy calm clarity and digestive comfort.
But if you’re not 100% happy, we’ve got your back.
If you’re not completely satisfied with your Just Thrive purchase for ANY reason, you can take advantage of our “Bottom of the Bottle” Money Back Guarantee: Love your Just Thrive purchase, or request a full product refund at any time… Whether it’s 3 days, 3 weeks, or 3 months later… Even if the bottle is empty!
Sources
- Tapper K. Mindful eating: what we know so far. Nutr Bull. 2022 Jun;47(2):168-185. doi: 10.1111/nbu.12559. Epub 2022 May 10. PMID: 36045097.
- Miller CK. Mindful Eating With Diabetes. Diabetes Spectr. 2017 May;30(2):89-94. doi: 10.2337/ds16-0039. PMID: 28588374; PMCID: PMC5439358.
- Zhang H, Wang Z, Wang G, Song X, Qian Y, Liao Z, Sui L, Ai L, Xia Y. Understanding the Connection between Gut Homeostasis and Psychological Stress. J Nutr. 2023 Apr;153(4):924-939.
- Konturek PC, Brzozowski T, Konturek SJ. Stress and the gut: pathophysiology, clinical consequences, diagnostic approach and treatment options. J Physiol Pharmacol. 2011 Dec;62(6):591-9. PMID: 22314561.
- Leigh SJ, et al. The impact of acute and chronic stress on GI physiology and function: a microbiota-gut-brain axis perspective. J Physiol. 2023 Oct;601(20):4491-4538.
- Cherpak CE. Mindful Eating: A Review Of How The Stress-Digestion-Mindfulness Triad May Modulate And Improve Gastrointestinal And Digestive Function. Integr Med (Encinitas). 2019 Aug;18(4):48-53. PMID: 32549835; PMCID: PMC7219460.
- Dogan BG, Tengilimoglu-Metin MM. Does mindful eating affect the diet quality of adults? Nutrition. 2023 Jun;110:112010.
- Morillo-Sarto H, et al. 'Mindful eating' for reducing emotional eating in patients with overweight or obesity in primary care settings: A randomized controlled trial. Eur Eat Disord Rev. 2023 Mar;31(2):303-319.
- Allen, A., Hutch, W., Borre, Y. et al. Bifidobacterium longum 1714 as a translational psychobiotic: modulation of stress, electrophysiology and neurocognition in healthy volunteers. Transl Psychiatry 6, e939 (2016).
- Wang H, Braun C, Murphy EF, Enck P. Bifidobacterium longum 1714™ Strain Modulates Brain Activity of Healthy Volunteers During Social Stress. Am J Gastroenterol. 2019 Jul;114(7):1152-1162.
- Savignac HM, Tramullas M, Kiely B, Dinan TG, Cryan JF. Bifidobacteria modulate cognitive processes in an anxious mouse strain. Behav Brain Res. 2015;287:59-72. doi: 10.1016/j.bbr.2015.02.044. Epub 2015 Mar 17. PMID: 25794930.
- Patterson E, Tan HTT, Groeger D, Andrews M, Buckley M, Murphy EF, Groeger JA. Bifidobacterium longum 1714 improves sleep quality and aspects of well-being in healthy adults: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial. Sci Rep. 2024 Feb 14;14(1):3725.
- Ghosh SS, Wang J, Yannie PJ, Ghosh S. Intestinal Barrier Dysfunction, LPS Translocation, and Disease Development. J Endocr Soc. 2020 Feb 20;4(2):bvz039.
- Kelly JR, Kennedy PJ, Cryan JF, Dinan TG, Clarke G, Hyland NP. Breaking down the barriers: the gut microbiome, intestinal permeability and stress-related psychiatric disorders. Front Cell Neurosci. 2015 Oct 14;9:392.
- Marzorati M, Van den Abbeele P, Bubeck S, Bayne T, Krishnan K, Young A. Treatment with a spore-based probiotic containing five strains of Bacillus induced changes in the metabolic activity and community composition of the gut microbiota in a SHIME® model of the human gastrointestinal system. Food Res Int. 2021 Nov;149:110676. doi: 10.1016/j.foodres.2021.110676. Epub 2021 Aug 30. PMID: 34600678.
- McFarlin BK, Henning AL, Bowman EM, Gary MA, Carbajal KM. Oral spore-based probiotic supplementation was associated with reduced incidence of post-prandial dietary endotoxin, triglycerides, and disease risk biomarkers. World J Gastrointest Pathophysiol. 2017 Aug 15;8(3):117-126. doi: 10.4291/wjgp.v8.i3.117. PMID: 28868181; PMCID: PMC5561432.