The Christmas holidays may be liked or not, lived with joy or counting the days until it ends, but there is no doubt that it reminds everyone of the passing and cyclical nature of time. An opportunity to remember how important time is, if well spent. Let’s see how to use it well at the table and for our health.
“At Christmas you can …” sang an old TV commercial. Not only Christmas and New Year, but many holidays, religious or otherwise, celebrate the cyclical nature and passing of time and lead us to confront the flow of time, to reflect on the past and prepare for the future. From the Chinese Moon Festival to the American Thanksgiving, from the Gregorian New Year to the Australian Yulefest, anniversaries often become moments of renewal, celebration and spiritual and social reflection.
However, time also plays a fundamental role in everyday life, not only for the alarm that rings in the morning or for work deadlines or school hours, but also for maintaining and improving our health, including at the table.

There is a time to eat and a time to rest

The human body follows a circadian rhythm, a cycle of approximately 24 hours that regulates many physiological functions, including sleep, body temperature, hormone secretion and metabolism. This rhythm has a significant impact on the so-called anabolic (building) and catabolic (energy-releasing) processes of the body, which are opposite but complementary phases in metabolism.
While awake, especially in the early hours of the day, the body enters the catabolic phase, using the nutrients contained in food to release energy and be at its peak efficiency. This is why it is important to start the day with a good breakfast and eat a complete meal during the lunch break. This will also allow us not to arrive too hungry in the evening.
A light evening meal is in fact essential for the anabolic phase, which begins in the evening and continues throughout the night. The body uses the hours of rest and fasting to effectively repair damaged tissue, eliminate senescent cells and restore its efficiency to start again in top form the next morning. A heavy dinner slows down and makes this process difficult and is the most likely cause of the tiredness that many people feel when they wake up.

The time dedicated to the meal

Eating in a hurry is never a good idea. Waking up at the last minute and having little time to dedicate to breakfast can increase the levels of adrenaline, which closes the stomach, preventing us from eating. Which means that by mid-morning we will throw ourselves on the first thing we see before our eyes. Or, if at lunch we gorge ourselves because we only have a few minutes of break, the poor chewing and the same stress hormones could prevent us from digesting well, with the consequent, very hateful, post-prandial drowsiness (you understand: it is not “the fault”, or at least not only, of what you eat, but of how you do it). Taking a minute to forget about the day’s activities and devote ourselves more presently to the meal will allow us to fully enjoy the taste of our lunch, will facilitate both satiety and digestion and will make the mid-day break more regenerating.

Time to chew

I mentioned it above and I will never tire of repeating it: many digestive problems, but also snacks that go on for too long could find a solution if we trained ourselves, every day, to chew more and more carefully. Prima digestio fit in ore, the motto of the medieval Salerno Medical School, is always valid and current. Chewing allows a fine grinding of food, but above all it gives time to the salivary enzymes to come into action, starting to degrade the starches. All this makes life much easier for the stomach and intestine, responsible for the subsequent phases of digestion. Furthermore, chewing sends a signal to our brain and if prolonged enough it helps to activate the satiety centers.

Seasonality

The passage of time also concerns the succession of the seasons. Each time has its own food: our metabolism and the need for different micronutrients, have evolved in a natural context, when we ate only what, from season to season, were the most accessible foods. This custom has been lost only in the last decades, consequently our body has not had time to adapt. It is no coincidence that in summer we have fruits and vegetables richer in water such as watermelon and cucumbers, while in the colder months foods rich in substances that support the immune system, such as citrus fruits or broccoli, are in season. Rediscovering a bit of that popular wisdom, which attributed to each time its own food, would be a treasure of enormous value also for us modern men and women.

Time to cook, time to share

You know, because from these pages I have made your head like this: the Mediterranean Diet is the lifestyle that more than any other promotes our health, with anti-inflammatory and anti-aging action. At the base of the pyramid of the Mediterranean Diet there are not foods, but virtuous behaviors: among these, dedicating time to the choice and preparation of food. Knowing what we are eating, being aware of the sensations and the value that it gives us when we consume it, is a fundamental contribution to our health. It does not matter if we can dedicate this time only once a week. When it happens, live it fully. Even better, if you can also combine this time with time to share food with your loved ones: conviviality is another cornerstone of the Mediterranean Diet and therefore of the health of body and mind.

Time for us.

In an era of hyper-connection, when we have the constant feeling of having to remain available or even the “duty” to expose ourselves, immortalizing every moment we live, including meals, the risk is precisely that of losing those moments and letting them slip away, unsavoured, in the time of a click. Taking a break, taking some time “disconnected”, not from reality, but from continuous contact, will allow us to give value and flavour to what we have chosen to regenerate ourselves, to have fun or to nourish ourselves. It can be a break lasting hours or days (for the luckiest ones), but not necessarily: taking a minute, I mean 60 seconds, once a day, simply to breathe, will give our body and mind time to recover from stress, fatigue and mental confusion, improving the resistance of the body and mind to pressure situations. Just one minute of conscious breathing can be incredibly beneficial. It can act as a quick “reset” that helps manage stress, improve concentration, promote blood circulation and stimulate calm. With practice, this simple gesture can become a powerful ally in maintaining well-being and mental clarity throughout the day.

A timely greeting from yours truly
from your nutrition consultant,

Tatiana Gaudimonte
info@loveyourbody.ch