Mindfulness can improve health in other ways as well. One mindfulness-based program even helps treat eating disorders.
People who binge on food are overly sensitive to outside cues, says Jean Kristeller. She is a psychologist at Indiana State University in Terre Haute.
Kristeller created a program to help combat binge eating. Called Mindfulness-Based Eating Awareness Training, or MB-EAT, it helps people reconnect with their bodies. The goal is to make diners more aware so that they can control how much food they consume.
Participants in the MB-EAT program learned to meditate. They focused on internal body sensations, including hunger and satiety. They did mindful-eating exercises similar to the one Engelking does with her students. They also learned to do "mini-meditations" before eating. These helped the participants pay closer attention to the foods they chose and the sensations involved with eating. Mini-meditations also helped them notice when they were no longer hungry.
Most dramatically, within six months of starting the study, 95 percent of people in the MB-EAT group no longer qualified as a binge eater.
To read more of Alison Pearce Stevens' article, please click here.
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