Mindfulness, Depression and Diet

Today I received through the post a book titled: "The mindful way through depression", then I came across the following list of serotonin rich foods:

High Serotonin Concentration
Bananas
Kiwi
Pineapple
Plantains
Plums
Tomatoes

Moderate Serotonin Concentration
Avocado
Black Olives
Broccoli
Cantaloupe
Cauliflower
Dates
Eggplant
Figs
Grapefruit
Honeydew melon
Spinach

.... which led me to wonder if there was in fact a mindful diet - now what I came across was pages with information from a book by Susan Albers on Eating Mindfully, which included some mindful exercises related to food. These are the first two:

1. Skill Builder: Walking Backward and Forward

Meditation brings wisdom; lack of meditation leaves ignorance. Know well what leads you forward and what holds you back, and choose the path that leads to wisdom.
-- Buddha

If you have had a period of mindless eating, think about what happened before it. Retrace your steps. Go over your experience backwards, and identify all of the individual steps that led to where you are now. Do it one step at a time.

1. Ask yourself this question. What began your mindless eating? What happened right before you started eating? Often, examining the context of the situation leads you back to the feelings and thoughts that prompted the situation. There are many factors that could have made you susceptible to uncontrolled eating.
2. After you walk through the incident backwards, walk through it again, going forwards this time. Be aware of the feelings that occurred after your bout of mindless eating.
3. Once you have walked through the incident, try to identify those points when you might have taken a different path. Commit the circumstances of this critical juncture to your memory.

2. Skill Builder: Don't Let Your Emotions Eat You Up

The following exercises will help you cope with difficult emotions in the moment rather than allowing them to eat you up.

1. Identify the feeling. Full awareness is always the key. Write a letter to yourself describing the emotion. Observe it first, then describe it.
2. Bump it down a notch. Imagine that you can quantify the level of your emotion, and adjust it, just as you can tune the dial that sets your radio volume. If you are at ten, make a plan about what needs to happen to reduce it to a six.

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Ok, a rambly post, but I was in the moment, following where my thinking on this topic was taking me :)