Skip to content
Ah, fall! The time of year when we settle back into our routines and more predictable schedules. This is also a time to digest and contemplate our summer experiences and how they might have shaped us.
This past summer my family and I went to Europe and spent time in Paris, Italy, and Romania. It was interesting to observe the food habits of the Europeans: they take time for meals and enjoy their food. Food holds a sacred space for them: many employees receive a lunch allowance, meal times are clearly defined and set aside, people sit down together for meals, and food is mostly all eaten freshly made. To go containers are hard to find. People are not in the habit of taking left-overs home. Nobody walks around with coffee cups. Meal time is held as special and to be enjoyed in the company of others while savoring freshly cooked meals.
Food Digestion
In order for digestion to occur properly in our bodies, we must switch our nervous system from sympathetic (fight or flight mode) to parasympathetic (rest and digest mode). The signal to the organs to start secreting the digestive juices and enzymes required for breaking down the food substances is mediated by the parasympathetic nervous system. If we eat our breakfast while driving to work, or our lunch while working on the computer, it is difficult for our nervous system to switch. This switch to parasympathetic mode requires a certain degree of relaxation so that we exit the “fight or flight” mode of operation that traffic or deadlines induce. Taking digestive enzymes or eating a restricted diet that is easy to digest can provide some compensation, but how we eat is at least as important as what we eat. Guilt about what we eat can also contribute to increased sympathetic tone, while sitting down for meals, slowing down and chewing our food well helps us switch into parasympathetic.
Most of us know this already, but our habits, our culture, or our beliefs make it difficult to change our ways. Why is it so hard for us to change? Maybe it is about recognizing that our own physical needs are important (more important than the work we do, or taking care of others, etc). Maybe it is about building time into our schedules to honor ourselves with food. Maybe it is about giving ourselves permission to stop and really savor the food before us. Taking care of our physical needs is not a privilege but a responsibility out of respect for life.
Digestion on multiple levels
Digestion does not comprise just the food we put into our mouths. Digestion involves also the food we feed to our minds, our eyes, and mostly to our emotional bodies. Do we take time to digest the events of the day? Let’s say you have an argument with a family member in the morning, but you have to rush to work before you can really process what happened. You morning is busy with interactions and you spend the afternoon in lectures working towards your next certification. While driving home, you listen to the news and someone cuts you off in traffic. You find yourself overreacting and getting really angry. When you finally have some quiet time later that evening, do you have time to digest all the events of that day? Have you processed the morning’s argument and do you have the capacity to sit with your family member and work it out? Are you able to integrate the learning you did in the afternoon? Are you still a little irritated from the traffic? We need time to process and integrate most events that happen to us throughout the day, especially the emotional situations that arise and the new information that we feed to our brains. In world that is constantly full of new information, there is little time for integration of new learning and almost no time for processing emotions. Unintegrated learning is like an overstuffed stomach. Unprocessed emotions turn to stress and anxiety. When we are under stress our mind starts worrying about things that we cannot control, remembering tasks that have been forgotten, rehashing events, planning future conversations. On an emotional level we find ourselves being irritable or over-reacting.
Arguments, deadlines, traffic, news, etc. are all normal part of life; they are not the cause of our stress. The inability to digest these events, either because we don’t make the time for it, or because we don’t know how to do it, leads to an accumulation of our reactions to these events in our unconscious, which causes stress. When our brains are under less stress, we might spend our quiet moments more pleasantly: daydreaming, reflecting on memories, contemplating the nature of things, or even just being very present to our bodies, the food we are eating, and our proper digestion.
Integration
One way to digest the events of the day is to do a nightly review before falling asleep. Try to review the events of that day in reverse order, starting from the last thing that happened before going to bed and going backwards to the first events of the morning. And try to see these events from the other person’s point of view; how the others experienced you. When something did not go well, create a case scenario of how that could have gone better: what happened inside of you at the time and how could you have been more honest and kinder to yourself and the others.
Another way to digest our days and to prevent stress is to slow down and build in more time for reflection or “doing nothing”. For most of us, sitting down to meditate is difficult, unless we have had some down time to digest the happenings of the day. Those quiet moments are everywhere: when exercising alone in nature, washing dishes, driving in a quiet car, when waking up or going to bed early. So enjoy those moments while waiting for someone, standing in line, or even while sitting in traffic. Instead of checking your phone for the latest email messages take the time to look around and reflect and observe nature.
I hope this fall season you can slow down a little and allow more time for quiet digestion in your life.
What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare
“Leisure” a poem by W. H. Davies written in in 1911
Sleep: a wonderful resource
Summer travels and the transition from summer to fall can bring changes in our sleep patterns. If you have trouble sleeping, or would like to learn more about the importance of sleep, please check out the article I wrote for the current edition of Lilipoh:
Click here to read the article.
Happy Fall and Happy Michaelmas to all!
Dr. Daci
