In the mobile age we have normalized very disturbing things.
Habits like walking down the street pushing the baby stroller with
our eyes fixed on the phone screen
as if our lives depended on it without noticing how happy we would make the creature in front of us if we paid a little attention to it.
That or sit down to lunch, alone in the company of others, to
gobble up the food while we anxiously check our whatsapp
, gossip the Instagram stories and, if necessary, drop a pearl on Twitter after responding to a couple of 'urgent' emails '.
The bad thing is that although it may seem harmless, this state of permanent disintegration is not good for us.
"Any activity we carry out should require our
full awareness,
thus favoring our ability to voluntarily bring our attention, which tends to be wandering," says Soraya Bajat, head of Mental Health at the Sanitas La Moraleja University Hospital and head of the Department of Psychology at the Sanitas La Zarzuela University Hospital.
Bajat explains that "neuroscience has shown that where we put our attention, we put our energy."
What's more, "dispersion can interfere with the way we carry out everyday activities such as driving,
pushing us to function automatically
with the risk that this entails."
In fact, continues this psychologist, "most accidents that occur while we carry out our routine tasks are caused by a
lack of attention
to what we are doing."
What does this have to do with the extra kilos and the mobile?
Everything.
"If we are attending to the phone while we eat, the action of
eating will take a backseat because it is a more automatic behavior
and most of our attention (not all of it) will be focused on the mobile. So, in the end, we will do both things at half gas".
By being aware of the messages, emails and jokes on social networks, we will miss the wonderful 'here and now' that a good meal implies and "we will not indulge in
enjoying the taste
of food".
If that's not right, what's coming now is, if possible, even worse, because that dispersion will turn us into pasture for
emotional hunger
.
"We will be exposed to
altering the amount of intake depending on the mood that induces us what we are seeing on the phone.
If it makes us sad, we will eat less; if it makes us nervous, we can eat more. Also, if we eat
faster than normal
because what we're doing on the phone upsets us,
we won't feel full in time
and we'll probably end up eating much more than we need because the signal that we're full will arrive late to the brain.
But there is still more.
This psychologist reminds us that "the act of eating can also involve the
risk of choking.
That is why, when children learn to eat, we strongly insist that they
pay attention and chew enough
, drink water, do not put too much in their mouths, etc. but it seems that when we get older, we forget all this".
For all these reasons, Soraya Bajat recommends that we "
separate the spaces and times for each activity well
, differentiating leisure from obligations and living in the present without interference, even more so now with so much teleworking".
Today, thanks to smartphones we spend the day connected, it is likely that "we are invaded by the feeling of working all day".
A feeling that intensifies "if we don't properly separate and differentiate each of the activities we do to
perceive in a real way the time we invest
in each one of them".
By getting used to eating with phones in hand, not only will our diet and, by extension, our health lose out, but our personal relationships will also suffer.
"Without realizing it, by having the mobile phone on the table, even if we are accompanied, we continue with the inertia of looking, answering, etc.,
ceasing to attend to conversations with other people and generating an insurmountable emotional distance
. By having the attention divided Between the device and the companions, we miss unique moments that, of course, are much more enriching than contemplating a screen".
Let's all take note for the next time we sit down to eat and, by extension, also the lucky ones who are still in the process of walking their babies.
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