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The Wellness Connection with Fiona Kane
Real Conversations about things that Matter
All things life and health - physical health, nutrition, mindset, mental health, connection plus society and culture with Fiona Kane, experienced and qualified Nutritionist, Holistic Counsellor and Mind Body Eating Coach
Frank discussions about how to achieve physical and mental well being.
I talk about all things wellness including nutrition, exercise, physical and mental health, relationships, connections, grief, success and failure and much more.
Some episodes are my expertise as a nutritionist and holistic counsellor and some are me chatting to other experts or people with interesting health or life stories. My goal is to give you practical and useful info to improve your health and tidbits that you may find inspiring and that may start discussions within your circle of friend/family.
The Wellness Connection with Fiona Kane
How to Eat for Better Digestion: Simple Mindful Eating Hacks | Ep 136
Struggling with indigestion, reflux, or bloating? It might not just be what you eat - it’s how you eat. In this episode of the Wellness Connection Podcast, Fiona Kane explains the importance of eating mindfully and how activating your body’s rest and digest mode can transform your digestion and overall health.
Learn practical strategies to:
Reduce reflux and digestive discomfort
Use the 4-7 breathing technique to calm your body before meals
Slow down your eating and chew properly
Make more conscious food choices for better nutrient absorption
Apply lessons from longevity “Blue Zones” to your daily routine
Whether you’re eating on the go or want to improve your gut health naturally, these tips can help you feel lighter, more energized, and improve digestion without drastic diet changes.
📌 Listen to the full podcast for more insights and tips
💬 Share your experiences in the comments: how does eating mindfully affect your digestion?
Outro: Music by Musinova from Pixabay
Learn more about booking a nutrition consultation with Fiona: https://informedhealth.com.au/
Learn more about Fiona's speaking and media services: https://fionakane.com.au/
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Hello and welcome to the Wellness Connection podcast. I'm your host, Fiona Kane. Today I'm going to be revisiting a topic I have talked about before, but something I see so commonly that it's worth talking about again. And it's in regards to digestion. So a lot of people have reflux and indigestion and all sorts of digestive issues. And they're always looking for the thing to fix it, whether it be is it probiotics or is it prebiotics or is it this food, that food, FODMAPS diet, or whatever. And while all of those things may have their place, sometimes it's you know bring things, bring it back to basics and talk to people about not just what they eat or what they consume, but actually how you eat. And a lot of people just do not realize that that is just as important as what you eat, how you eat. So that's what I'm going to be focusing on today: the strategies that you can use to really support your digestion, and you might find it really reduces that reflux, uh, indigestion, or any of those kinds of symptoms you might be having. So it's important to understand that, and I've talked about this in lots of different contexts before in regards to the nervous system, but there's two main modes of the nervous system. So there's fight or flight or rest and digest. When we're in the fight or flight mode, which a lot of people would recognize and know as the stress mode, when we're in that mode, what happens is because your body is preparing you to deal with a threat, so it, you know, it you might have to perform or you might have to run and you know, fight the bear or run away from the bear, whatever it is. If your body thinks you're going to become lunch, it does not care if you digest lunch. So another way of saying that is your body will stop making digestive enzymes and stop doing its digestion. So it it's because it it's that's why you will feel quite sick sometimes if you have a shock or if something upsets you if you're if you're kind of going to that stress mode, you'll feel quite sick because there's just no circulation going to your digestive system and you're not making digestive enzymes. And so when we eat when we're in stress mode, we often can't digest that food. So you're not making the enzymes, the food sits in your stomach for way, way too long. And then what happens is it starts coming back up again, so you might have reflux and digestion symptoms, uh and or it just sits for so long that you're uncomfortable, and um, and really you just end up with this really sluggish digestive system, or on the other hand, maybe your body just pushes it straight through because it just can't deal with it, so it might be the opposite of that where you're running to the bathroom. So it's important to understand that many people we eat when we're in this stress mode. And the problem is that in our modern society is a stress mode is really, really easy and common to be in because we rush, rush, rush, rush, our lives are so busy, and we're often eating in on the run, in the car, whatever it is. And um, so we're eating when we're in this stress mode where we should be in rest and digest mode. So when we're in um when we're in rest and digest mode, so I think I did I say before it was fight or flight mode? The stress mode is fight or flight mode. Hopefully I said that. Sorry, I'm really tired, so I don't know. Now I kind of remember exactly what I said. But the mode I was just talking about where you're not making digestive enzymes, that is fight or flight mode. And fight or flight mode is when your body is preparing you to fight or perform or whatever, and you're not making the digestive enzymes and digesting properly when you're in fight or flight mode. To eat a meal uh and then to be able to digest it well, we need to be in rest and digest mode. And when you're in rest and digest mode, sort of the name gives it away, but when you're in that mode, you're getting circulation to your digest digestive system, you can make digestive enzymes, you can so you can break the food down fairly, you know, simply and easily in the stomach so it doesn't sit there for too long. And what you can also do is um is you can use those nutrients, absorb those nutrients, use those calories, use the food the way you're meant to. So when you eat when you're in rest and digest mode, you can do all of those things. But uh, when you eat when you're in fight or flight mode, you cannot do those things, uh, and or you do them very poorly, right? So it's important to understand that we do need to eat when we're in rest and digest mode. And an example I've used before, uh, my mentor uh uh sort of taught me this is um is uh and he's from uh it's Mark from the Psychology of Eating Institute. What's his um I might just having a sorry I'm just probably a bit too tired to be recording this, but anyway, he's he's the person who told me about this story. So he was working with uh a client, and that client was a GP. And the GP used to eat macas for lunch every day, and he would get in the car, drive to Maccas, eat the maccas in the car on the way back to see his next patient, and he was getting a really, really bad indigestion or reflux. And he said, I don't want to stop eating the macas, it's too convenient, just sort of, you know, but I want you to help me fix this. And so my mentor said to said to him, um, it's Mark David, Mark David from the Psychology Institute of Eating in Colorado. Anyway, he he said, All right, what I want you to do then, don't change what you're eating, fine. But what I want you to do is stop in the car park for 10 minutes at Maccas and just eat slowly. So just focus on your food, eat slowly, give yourself 10 minutes to eat the food and digest the food before you go back to work. So he started doing that and his digestion issues resolved straight away. And so, you know, even though I'd like to, you know, in some ways as a nutritionist, I'd like to say, no, it's a it's about the food. And I'm not saying it's never about the food, the food uh obviously can have a really big effect on our health, and it does just because it didn't give in digestion doesn't mean it wasn't having other effects. However, just from a you know, as as an example of how powerful the way you eat is, even just by spending that 10 minutes in the car rather than um sitting in the car park rather than in the traffic, that was enough for his body to calm down enough to sort of eat that food and digest that food. And um, funnily enough, apparently a few weeks later he came back and said he'd stopped eating the macas. And he said, Why? It's because he said when he slowed down, didn't enjoy it so much. So that's that's a that's kind of another part of this topic, really, but it's eating, uh eating consciously. Because when you eat consciously, we rarely throw down garbage down our throat all the time, you know, and and in large amounts when we're really conscious when we're eating. When you're really conscious when you're eating, when you're savouring those bites and really, really chewing well and all that sort of stuff, you do notice what you're eating more, and sometimes you don't enjoy things that you thought that you enjoyed. We think we enjoy something because it's sort of the mouthfeel, that that taste that we enjoy for a moment, uh, and um and we don't always associate it with how we feel later. But often when we slow down, you don't enjoy it as much as you thought you did, and we often stop having that food, having that thing. You know, so what so what we do know is when when we look at places what that are called blue zones, which is the places in the world where people have longevity, they live till they're in their hundreds, and they don't have things like dementia and and all those kinds of things. There's lots of different factors, and I've talked about them on this podcast quite a few times, so I'm not going to go all over all of them today. But one of those factors is that they uh usually eat slowly, they usually eat intentionally. So these are places where they, you know, in the middle of the day, so it a lot of them are in parts of Europe, so it might be places where they kind of have that siester time throughout the middle of the day where you know they in the hottest part of the day, the family all gets together, they they cook, you know, they make fresh, uh, healthy meal that they, you know, so it's a slow eating thing, right? And so it's all fresh, it's locally grown, and uh stuff that they've been growing for centuries in that dis in that area, all of that sort of stuff. It's not it's not Uber Eats, it's not stuff that's come in from flown around from across the other side of the world and been in refrigeration for five years, it's none of that, it's actually just real food, and they eat slowly and they and they connect, they spend time with family and or family or friends, and so that's a kind of a common theme with people who have longevity is that one of the things is they eat real food, they eat as a real local kind of the same diet that they've had for centuries uh for for that uh that person at those that um tribe or that village or whoever they are in that place, and um, and also they usually eat in a relaxed, calm way. So they're not eating in the traffic, they're not eating while they're you know reading the scrolling through social media or watching the news or replying to all of their emails or doing the banking or whatever they're doing. They're actually just eating, they're either eating just quietly, just themselves or quietly with whoever they're whoever they're eating with, um, or you know, having conversations, whatever, but it's in a relaxed way. So it's really, really important that we learn how to eat in a relaxed way and that we we see uh many of us see, excuse me, many of us see food as kind of something, oh, it's oh I don't have time for that. It gets in the way and I'll just quickly do it. Oh, you know, I'm not gonna take a full lunch break. What I'll do is at the end of my lunch break, uh, I will bring back whatever it is I get and I will throw it down uh as I walk back into the office or the the workshop or wherever you happen to work. A lot of us seafood this this way, we don't make time for it. We don't see, we we don't understand that digestion and what an important role it plays because it's where you get all your nutrition, and your nutrition is what powers your energies, what powers you to grow new cells, powers you do detoxification to work in your body, and all of the many, many things that your nutrition does for you. Uh well, it happens through the food that you eat, and but it's not just the food you eat, you have to not only eat the nutrition, the food that's got the nutrition in it, but you have to actually be able to digest it and absorb it, right? And so um digestion is really important for that, and eating is really important for that. But I just don't think I think in our society we kind of it's like the 50 millionth thing on our minds, and we're kind of like, oh no, I've got to do this, I've got to get that done, and we're running from one thing to the next, and we just don't understand how important eating not just what we eat is but how we eat it. So we have to think of ways of um slowing down when we eat. Now, ideally, you sit down with your family every night and eat a home-cooked meal. Obviously, that's the ideal, and you're connecting with those people. But even if that can't work, if you can sit and be quiet for 10 minutes while you're eating wherever you happen to be, if you can just make sure you're not putting the news on while you're eating, because that's just going to be reduced one stress because it's, you know, what is it if it bleeds it leads kind of thing, you know, the news is can be quite graphic and quite stressful. So can scrolling, um, scrolling, because scrolling is the same thing these days, because whether you absorb your news from YouTube or from the TV or from Facebook or wherever you news is news, right? And and and so often you can see things that are quite distressing or quite stressful, finding out about what's going on in the world or possible wars or all that, all those sorts of things aren't conducive to absorbing your nutrients well, digesting well. And one of the ways that you can um change your body from that fight or flight mode into the rest and digest mode, and I have talked about this before as well, is but it's a breathing technique where for one minute you breathe in for four seconds and out for seven seconds. So it's in for four, out for seven. And when you do that for one minute, which is six breaths, what you will find is it takes your body out of that fight or flight mode and puts it into a rest and digest mode. So that's kind of a useful trick to learn to do to kind of slow yourself down and get your body prepared to eat. So even by doing that, just that one thing alone, like if you learn one thing, spending one minute just preparing your body, letting your body know it needs to be in rest and digest mode before you eat, that could make a huge difference to your health, to your digestion, reduce digestive symptoms, allow you to absorb your nutrients and use your nutrients and your calories properly. So just that one thing, even if that's the only thing you change after listening or watching this, is that you slow your body down, you do that breathing technique four seconds in, seven seconds out for one minute, it's just six breaths. So if you just practice that for six breaths, you're preparing your body for uh putting your body in rest and digest mode and preparing your body to eat, digest, and absorb. So just that simple, one simple thing can make a huge amount of difference. I would encourage you though, like I said, you can do that one simple thing, that all that alone will be very helpful. But yes, I would encourage you to think of other ways of uh of eating in a relaxed and calm way. So anything that you can change, it might be the slightest thing that you can change. So it might even be when you're at work or used to eating over your computer, uh, when you're in your lunch break, and you know, instead of doing that, go and sit in the park or go and sit. If you have to go and sit in your car in the car park to get a quiet place, go and do that, or go and sit in the park or in the lunchroom or somewhere just away from uh your office space if you're the sort of person that sits over your computer while you're eating. Because you know, it it's funny because I can't I saw this change happening, you know, should I show my age, but I was working in offices in um the 80s and 90s and uh and onwards. And in that time I noticed that bosses started a lot of um some companies started providing lunch for their employees. I thought, oh, how generous that is! And then I realized what they were doing. They thought, well, if we spend in those days it was 10 bucks. So if we spend 10 bucks per person on lunch, then they won't leave their desk and they'll feel like they owe us and they'll stay at their desk and work harder and get work done. And you know, I I I think that ultimately when they kind of did look at it and measure that over time, I think they realized that it was a false economy in that people might have stayed at their desk and they might have thought they got through more work, but it actually wore them out faster. And they, you know, people got tired and they didn't have a break and they didn't they didn't clear their mind and you know, all of the things. And so, and probably also they weren't digesting very well. So a combination of all of those things I think probably meant that people's physical and mental health probably was less, and they so therefore their performance in the beginning, their performance might have been more. But I suspect, you know, I don't have the evidence of this. I just remember hearing about it at the time, so like I haven't looked this up, but I suspect over time the um the benefit would have waned, and over time they would have found that those people their performance would have reduced because they're just not getting any kind of a physical or mental break or slowing down enough to let their body know that they can digest their food, you know. It's really important to be able to uh rest and digest. So uh yeah, uh that's a false economy, but I've noticed that a lot of workplaces do that these days, and a lot of my clients tell me that their bosses expect them to stay at the desk. And and anyway, and if if you do stay at your desk, I would advise that you stay at stay at your desk, but you move away from your computer and you sit and eat, or if you're on a desk where you've always got the public coming in, whatever, then you can't do that. You need to actually get away from that desk so that you can have some quiet time and eat your food. So it is really important that we understand that uh and I have seen this with my clients so many times that as soon as they start eating in a really calm way, their digestion gets much better, they have a lot less symptoms, and um and then, like I said, they might start more because you're slowing down when you eat, you're more conscious when you eat, and when you're more conscious when you eat, you notice what you're doing. So when we eat consciously versus unconsciously, like that doctor in the car on the way back to the surgery, that was eating unconsciously, right? You're eating unconsciously, and essentially what you're doing is it's just like you're you're not paying attention at all, you're just throwing it down. And when you're doing that, you're not really paying attention to what you're eating, um, either physically or psychologically. So you're not physically noticing it, you're not noticing how you're feeling, how it's affecting you, how you're getting tired, those sorts of things. But you're also not really clocking it psychologically, or I don't know, so psychologically the word, but um mentally, you're not uh noticing it, you're not noticing what you're eating. So you could very easily re misreport what you're eating because you don't really notice what you're eating. Because when we eat in an unconscious way, whether it's like what you eat when you're sitting at the movies and you're unconsciously just eating, or when you're in the car on the way home, or you do it you're sitting at your computer in that bag of chips or whatever that is, we often don't count those kinds of foods. We don't notice it because we don't clock that we've done it, because we didn't do it consciously. When we slow down and we go into that rest and digest mode to eat, we notice what we eat. So we clock it consciously as in we know that we've done it, we know what we're doing. So that there that also then comes into our choices and our, you know, it kind of runs runs across our, you know, the part of our brain, the part of our mind that's making choices about is this a good idea or is this what I want to eat or is this good for me, or whatever those questions that you ask yourself. If you eat unconsciously, you're not asking yourself those questions at all. If you eat consciously, you start to ask yourself some of those questions. And one of those questions I encourage my clients to ask themselves is is this nourishing me? So it's not like is it good or bad, or am I supposed to, or whatever, but it's like, is this nourishing me? And the food that nourishes someone might not be the same thing that nourishes you. So it's not even a question of necessarily good or bad foods, although that sort of matters, but it's a question of is this nourishing me? And if you're getting really bad indigestion, straight after you eat it, maybe not. And you've either got to look at what's going on with her digestive stem digestive system, why is that happening? Or maybe the food you're eating is just isn't, you know, like um potato chips give me indigestion. And I sort of the way I see it is well, that's because say junk food, right? So I just should do that less, which I do because I don't like having indigestion like that. But I notice it, uh, so when we notice it, we tend to make different choices, or we make a choice, but we we know that we've done it, so we just take responsibility for it. But also when you start really, really noticing your food, how it tastes, whether you know, whether you feel uh energized after it or whether you feel sick or whatever it is, you start making different choices. The more conscious you are, then the more you can actually make conscious choices. And um, so eating unconsciously doesn't help with that. But when you eat in rest and digest, you've got to calm yourself down to a point where you're conscious, and that can be a really good thing to uh and and not even just from a point of view of eating, but when we do that, that will be three times a day that we've calmed our minds down, three times a day that we've been a little bit present for a few minutes. So, even just from that point of view, without even thinking about digestion, there's a lot of benefits just to that. So, um, so you know, I would really like to encourage you to start thinking about how you eat. What you eat matters, but start by thinking about how you eat, start by actively putting your body into rest and digest mode and really uh really getting to know you know what that feels like and how you know how different foods make you feel, and um, and being really conscious about the choices you make in regards to food, because you might find that uh just being present and being in rest and digest digest mode makes a big difference to your digestive symptoms and how you feel overall. And I'd love to hear back from people as well as what what their experiences are, how that makes you feel. You're welcome to, you know, wherever you uh see this video or hear this podcast, there's all sorts of different places, whether it be on social media or on Buzzsprout or on Spotify or wherever it is, YouTube, to reply and just let me know how you know these sorts of foods make you feel, or like not just foods, but how it feels when you're more conscious when you're eating, uh how it feels when you're active actively putting your body into rest and digest when you eat. So uh I'd really love to hear your feedback of how that works for you and the experiences that you have. It really is important. Like I said, it's not just what you eat, it's how you eat. And um, and you know, knife and fork, sit down, eat slowly, put your knife and fork down between bites, you don't have to throw it down. You know, a lot of people who've been in, say, like the army or in boarding school or big families, they throw their food down and don't chew, it doesn't hit the sides, you know. So obviously that's not great for your digestion. So you've really got to, you know, be in rest and digest mode. Sit down with your knife and fork and put it, put it down between each sir each uh mouthful and chew. Remember to chew. So many of us don't chew, or we have three chews and then swallow it whole, and then we wonder why we have a sore stomach or why it's like our it's not going down, you know. So uh pay attention to these things and learn how to eat in rest and digest mode and see what a difference that makes for your life. So uh sorry I was a bit tired and hope I made sense and wasn't rambling too much. And um anyway, I hope you um I'm pleased that you know if you got benefit from this, if you've learned something in this episode, please uh like, subscribe, share, give me feedback, uh, send the episode to uh family or friends and um and or work, you know, work colleagues and uh and you know, rate and all of those things, rate and review. I'd really appreciate that to get this podcast out there more. Hope you have a wonderful week. And uh, this is where I have real conversations about things that matter, and talk to you again soon. Thanks. Bye bye.
