Pace Your Meals — for Real

Now, if the idea of actually slowing down has you low-key panicking, think of it as a skill for mature, grown-ass adults that can be built over time. Here’s how.

1. Clear urgent distractions. You don’t have to check off everything on your to-do list before you sit down to eat (or else, let’s be real, you’d probably never sit down to eat). But you should try to eliminate immediate tasks — like sending out a time-sensitive email or feeding the dog — prior to eating, as just the thought of knowing you have to do something soon can subconsciously make you speed up your meal, says Melanson.
   
2. Forget the clock. The standard rec used to be to spend 20 minutes eating each meal. But both Melanson and Scott-Dixon agree this advice is outdated. When using time as a metric, people might end up reading on their phone, swallowing spaced-out bites whole, or otherwise multitasking just to kill the minutes — all of which interfere with the benefits of eating slowly, since they pull attention away from the activity of eating itself. When you’re not being mindful, it’s a lot harder to notice when you feel full.
   
   Plus, not everyone has the luxury of taking a full 20 minutes for every meal (if only). Scott-Dixon recommends thinking about mealtime as a chance to bring intention, attention and calm to the process of eating. “So what that might look like for you is, before you eat, take one deep breath,” she says. “Then maybe have a bite and take another deep breath.” Doing this consistently — even if you get in only a few deep breaths per meal at first — can help you build a habit of breathing deeply and calmy before and after every bite.
   
3. Focus on chewing. Chewing your food thoroughly doesn’t just keep you from choking. It’s also important because nerves embedded in our jaw muscles relay signals to our brain’s satiety centers, says Melanson. Counting your chews can help, but it’s not really a practical strategy if you want to, ya know, be a human while eating with other people. Instead, Melanson recommends chewing until food feels smooth in your mouth and there are no chunks left (not as icky to think about when you’re actually eating, promise).
   
   Obviously, some foods don’t need much chewing, like protein shakes and oatmeal. But even with these foods, you can mimic the effect of chewing by moving them around in your mouth before swallowing (again, grosser said than done).
   
4. Visualize each bite’s journey. One strategy Melanson uses with people in her research studies is to have them visualize each bite of food traveling from their mouth to their esophagus to their stomach before they take their next bite. It might sound a little bizarre (and is probably best for solo dining), but this helps with spacing out mouthfuls so you can start to really taste and savor each bite, she says.
   
5. Tap into your senses. Staying in the moment is a key part of slowing down and noticing those need-to-hear-’em satiety signals. That’s why Scott-Dixon is a big fan of listening, tasting and smelling as you eat. You might focus on the sound of crunching, the texture of the food in your mouth, the individual ingredients you can taste, or the aromas of what’s on your plate.
   
   Scott-Dixon sometimes even has people narrate their meal experience. “So they’ll take their phone and put a dictation app on it and be like, “OK, now I’m taking the first bite. And it’s yogurt. And it’s pink. And it smells like strawberries.’” Yes, you may feel totally ridiculous. But trying this experiment once or twice can hammer home what it really feels like to be in the present moment when you eat, explains Scott-Dixon, making mindfulness more natural over time. If nothing else, maybe a creative date night idea, no?
   
6. Shake off setbacks. Old habits die hard. If you notice yourself scarfing, Scott-Dixon suggests hitting pause on your meal and checking in with your body. Often, we tense our muscles while we’re speed-eating, triggering that fight-or-flight response. Take a sec to loosen up — maybe even stretch your arms or shake out your limbs if you need to. Returning to your meal in a more chilled-out state can make it easier to slow down.
   
   Also, remember that hustle culture has made “a quick bite” feel like second nature, so it’s normal to struggle with slow eating at first. Cut yourself some slack by starting with less challenging meals, like sit-down dinners. From there, work your way up to trickier situations, like desk lunches and car snacks. While fast food isn’t off-limits, eating fast should be.