Meditating after eating is a bad idea because it takes a lot of energy to digest food and this will disrupt your ability to focus during a meditation session.
Here’s my story and how I figured that out.
Just the other day I decided to meditate after having a big breakfast because I thought it would be a great way to relax while I digest my meal but that’s not exactly how it turned out. I decided to do some research after my bad experience and here’s what I found on why it’s such a bad idea to meditate after eating.
After eating a meal we have to digest food which takes a lot of energy and depending on the type of food it can make you quite sluggish and tired. When I started meditating I initially felt pretty good but I very quickly became unfocused and restless. This is exactly why many people get tired at work once they have lunch, it’s quite often due to certain types of food which we’ll go into more depth further down the page.
I just couldn’t get into the right headspace and felt completely frustrated and decided to give up.
This can be different based on what you ate and how you react to food but a great starting point would be to wait at least 30 minutes after eating so that you have time to digest your food. Can you meditate lying down after eating or is that worse? I have found it to be much more uncomfortable to try and meditate lying down if I have recently eaten.
The reason we wait 30 minutes is because that’s typically how long it will take for your digestion to really get into action and your energy levels will start coming back up.
It may sound a little weird to say that you need energy to do meditation but it’s true. It takes a fair bit of energy to meditate well, especially if you are a beginner as you’ll have to try really hard to stay focused and keep your mind from wandering.
Definitely start by waiting 30 minutes and see how you go, I personally wait about 90 minutes as I find that to be a perfect amount of time for myself.
The worst foods to eat before a meditation session are usually lots of high carbohydrate foods like sugar, pasta, rice, potatoes or bread as these will give you a little burst of energy followed by a pretty big crash which can take a long time to recover from.
You also want to stay away from eating a really big meal that’s super calorie dense as that can make you feel bloated and uncomfortable.
If you do end up eating some of these foods and still want to meditate that’s perfectly fine, just make sure you wait a little longer and go by how you feel.
The worst that can happen is you sit down and can’t get into a lovely zen state so you just try again later.
At the end of the day all of our bodies are amazing and incredibly different.
You may meditate immediately after eating and have no bad side effects.
Or you may be like me and fall asleep sitting up after having a bunch of carbs and taking a seat.
If the only time you can fit in a meditation session is after eating then definitely do it.
However it would be more beneficial if you just did the meditation first and ate afterwards, you can then also practice mindful eating which is another amazing meditation technique that you can take advantage of.