Everyone’s got an opinion on what we should and shouldn’t eat; paleo, gluten-free, veggie, vegan, high-protein, raw, 80:20, low-fat, juices and smoothies… the list goes on.

And whilst I love talking about the importance of food – in fact, Nutrition for Hormone Health is this month’s theme in The Flow Collective because it’s so crucial – there’s a tendency to focus on what we eat and forget about how we eat.

And I also appreciate that you may be feeling fed up with being told what to eat and what not to eat.

Being lectured at sucks.

I recently had a one-off coaching session with a woman (let’s call her Alison, totally not her real name) who’s been trying to conceive for two years. She gave me permission to share some of the generalities from our session as I’m willing to bet that many of you share her experience of mealtimes.

Alison’s biggest hope is that she and her husband conceive naturally, but she’s concerned that it hasn’t happened yet so they’re exploring IVF as well. The thing is, her doctor won’t put her on the local trusts list for IVF until she reduces her BMI (don’t even get me started on why going by BMI can be problematic). So as well as talking about trying to conceive, we also spoke about her weight.

She’s been to see other practitioners and been given numerous lists of what to include and exclude from her diet, and as we started discussing her meals and energy levels, I sensed Alison was dreading that I would come down hard on her and focus on restricting her food intake. She was therefore a bit shocked when I started asking her about how she eats.

Do your mealtimes look like this?

Alison told me that she doesn’t have time to eat breakfast at home so she usually grabs something on the go or eats once she’s at work. And I know she’s not alone in this because amongst my client base at least, this has become the norm.

She explained that due to her time-pressured work environment, she doesn’t usually take an actual lunch break. It’s rare for her to leave the office, and most of the time she eats her food whilst keeping an eye on her emails or reading documents. As she explained this to me, it became evident that this really frustrates her, but because it’s what’s seemingly expected amongst her colleagues, she doesn’t feel she can do anything about it. Sound familiar?

Instead, she eats her lunch whilst she’s stressed, and this, along with making time to eat breakfast, is what I asked her to change.

Let’s shift the focus from what we eat, to how we eat.

When Alison eats whilst she’s working, she feels pressure on her chest, a knot in her stomach and tension throughout her back and shoulders. If an urgent email comes through she can get palpitations too. Not exactly conducive to digestion.

When our bodies respond to stress, our blood gets diverted to our major organs such as the heart and lungs, because as far as our bodies are concerned, we’re preparing to fight an enemy or run away from a scary beast. Blood is shunted away from our gut and reproductive systems because digestion and reproduction aren’t a priority when we’re in flight or flight mode – all our body cares about is finding a way to be safe.

This means that when Alison receives an email from her boss (who in our evolutionary tale of stress shall portray the scary beast) asking if she’s done something she hasn’t managed to yet, her digestive tract essentially shuts up shop.

But we should be in rest and digest mode when we’re eating, not fight or flight.

So here’s what you can do to aid digestion:

• Get away from your desk and emails. Give yourself permission to take a lunch break, which by the way you are legally entitled to. Chances are everyone else in your office wants to do the same so be the leader! My guess is that your boss would prefer you to take a proper break as studies show that they increase productivity.

• Eat at a table. If you sit in a slump, say in front of the tv/computer, your digestive tract gets squished. Sitting upright at a table ensures your gut has room to work.

• Slow down before you eat. Before you delve into what’s on your plate – no matter how amazing your food looks and smells, or how hungry you are – take some nice big easy breaths. Doing this helps you to come out of the stress response by sending a signal to your brain to move your blood back to your gut. It also relieves tension from your diaphragm (the muscle we use to breathe), which in turn creates space for food to travel down to the stomach.

• Eat slowly. Sometimes I catch myself eating quickly and it really doesn’t feel good, so I ask myself, ‘what’s the hurry?’ am I really gaining anything (time, pleasure, nourishment) by rushing my mealtimes? The answer is always been a resounding ‘no’, so I take a moment, centre myself by breathing and coming into my body. Much better.

• Chew your food. Angelique Panagos, the author of The Balance Plan, was our special guest expert in The Flow Collective this month and she made a great point when she told us, ‘your stomach doesn’t have teeth!’ The more you chew your food, the more it can be broken down further down the digestive tract and the easier it is for your body to absorb nutrients. What’s the point on searching for, and spending money on great produce if your body isn’t able to make the most of the nutrients it contains? Digestion begins in your mouth.

• Make time to eat. Without adequate nutrition, every aspect of life gets much harder so the fact that your life is full means that it is even more necessary to get as much as you can out of mealtimes.

• Enjoy your food. This is a big one in Chinese medicine and something we often forget about in our quest to be ‘healthy’, but enjoying food is so important. Worrying or ruminating on things whilst you’re eating and digesting is a sure fire way to deplete the Qi (energy) of your digestive organs. Instead of over-thinking a problem or worrying about something someone said or didn’t say, focus on the smell and taste of your food instead. Feel yourself being nourished and energised.

This month in The Flow Collective, we’ve been concentrating on using protein, fat, and carbohydrates to support hormonal health, but I wanted to broaden the topic of nutrition for the founding members by writing about the impact of how we eat, and I figured you’d all benefit from these tips too. After all, none of my suggestions will cost you anything to implement, and not doing them will cost you a lot in the short and long-term.

Enjoy whatever you’re eating today!