7 Yin Practices for Quieting Food Noise (Without Ozempic) - Part 2

What if the body is where love is?

Nov 14, 2024

This three-part series is for anyone interested in quieting food noise (or other unhelpful thoughts and cravings) naturally. Part 1 is an entry into this conversation; Part 2 (today) offers ideas for internal (mental & emotional) caretaking, and Part 3 (coming later this month) offers practical steps for external (body & physical) caretaking.

As a Doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine since 2012, a practicing Buddhist and yogi for more than two decades, and someone who’s sober from alcohol and in full recovery from eating disorders, three things:

Shifting patterns related to food (which we can’t just quit) is challenging and liberating.
Changing these default patterns naturally is possible.
Through exploration, observation, and practice, we receive gifts that benefit all areas of our lives.

If you feel caught up in unhelpful patterns around food and eating, please know you’re not alone. And if you’re exploring ways to quiet food noise naturally (or quiet other unhelpful thoughts and cravings), this series is for you.

In Part 1, I spoke about seeing online discussions in which people mention reduction in food noise as one reason they’re taking or considering Ozempic or other GLP-1 drugs. Even if we put all things Ozempic aside, the buzz about food noise got my attention.

In this context, I interpret food noise as incessant thoughts about and fixation on food and eating (usually accompanied by a desire to stop thinking and obsessing about food all the time).

Everything that follows builds on Part 1, so please read that first. But to recap some highlights:

You are the number one caretaker of your body. Your deepest, most present, most aware self knows what you need. (And I’m not telling you or anyone else whether you should or should not go on Ozempic.)
When we numb out or disconnect from our body (through all manner of substances and behaviors, often in an effort to escape or lessen pain), it’s hard to hear and respond to our deepest, most present, most aware self.
We can’t selectively numb or selectively and exclusively turn off food noise. Numbing cravings also numbs pleasure, numbing worry also numbs awareness, numbing sadness also numbs love and connection and empathy.
To change our relationship with either our mind or body, we need to address and care for both mind and body.
We each have an opportunity to find inner calm, stillness, silence, and rest—including from food noise. And to cultivate a different, more supportive kind of hunger for things that nourish us, things that don’t require mental negotiations and justifications and acrobatics and painful consequences.

So, how to get there? The steps that worked for me can be roughly grouped into Yin practices and Yang practices:

Yin practices are things we do internally to get to know ourselves and our patterns more intimately. That’s our focus today, in Part 2.
Yang practices are things we do externally to take care of our physical, material body. That’s the focus of Part 3, coming next.

While the specifics vary (and your practices might look very different from mine), I’ve found the Yin-Yang, internal-external, mind-body combination essential.

Heads up that Part 3, which will cover physical caretaking and what I do to take care of my own body (e.g., how I eat, how I move, what else I do) will be paywalled. If you want access to that and everything else at Sober Soulful, including The Sobriety Series and My Soulful Life, you can upgrade your subscription here:

Author dressed in black lying on the floor, looking at the ceiling — Image of me by Rachel Shrum

7 Yin Practices for Quieting Food Noise

Whether you’re searching the internet, reading books, or working with skilled practitioners, there’s no shortage of advice about what you should and should not eat or do with your body. Some of that guidance is extremely useful. There are absolutely ways to eat, move, and live that support health, wellbeing, and shifting unhelpful patterns.

However, a major problem I see in today’s healing and self-help space is that folks tend to focus primarily on external actions (e.g., whether we should go on a drug, what we should eat, how we should exercise) OR focus primarily on internal practices (e.g., meditation, mindset, self-talk, reflective exercises like journaling). For integrated, lasting change in body and mind, we absolutely need to address both external actions and internal practices.

This is especially true if you’re looking for sustained change that feels good and becomes your new normal. There’s a big difference, for example, between teaching our body to suffer through yet another set of “food rules” and teaching our body to naturally hunger for foods that deeply nourish us and leave us feeling better, not worse.

Changing our relationship with food and body requires truly deciding to make that change and then deeply committing to it through all the ups and downs. This commitment is different from willpower: it emerges from surrendering to inner truth, the process, and practice.

None of this has to be miserable! In my experience, it’s resistance to change, more than change itself, that causes the most misery and suffering. By contrast, surrendering to deep inner commitment brings peace and relief, even amidst the discomforts of change.

Below, I offer a starting place for this more internal, Yin-natured work as relates to food noise. For many of us, this is the hardest aspect of changing our patterns—and also the most essential. As you’re reading through, remember: The simpler you can make things, the better. The impact comes from commitment, presence, patience, and time.

1. Let go (even just for now) of what your body looks like.

Believe me, I know “letting go of what we look like” can feel impossible. But this isn’t all or nothing. If “letting go” is too far-fetched, make space for the possibility of letting go and letting your body look how it looks. Or imagine what it would be like and feel like to not worry about your physical appearance.

Even just for right now, be that five minutes or an hour or a day or a week, rest from thinking about your body except for how it feels on the inside—the part only you can experience.

*Tip: Give yourself a break from looking in mirrors all the time. Even temporarily covering or taking down your mirrors at home can help break the cycle of constantly perceiving and thinking about how you look.

2. Become the expert in your food noise.

Rather than resisting food noise when it arises, get interested in it. Notice when it shows up, when it’s loudest, when it quiets and settles. Notice what conditions make it more or less intense and insistent. Notice your participation or lack of participation in those conditions. Notice what else is going on beneath and around the food noise.

In becoming the expert in your food noise, pay particular attention to your body. When your food noise is especially loud, what are you feeling physically, and where?

As much as you can, make this a body rather than mind-centric exploration. Notice what’s happening in as much detail as possible, including any physical sensations and subtle fluctuations.

Most important: witness without acting on the food noise (be that for five minutes, an hour, or longer). Also witness without getting lost in ideas, stories, plans, negotiations, judgments, or justifications about what you’re experiencing.

Your only job during this part is to stay interested and curious, show up with as much tenderness and gentleness as you can, and study what arises without acting on it or needing to fix it or figure it out.

*Tip: I like to have a mantra on hand—something that sums up where I’m practicing and serves as a reminder and guide (particularly when things feel confusing, overwhelming, or like I’m about to repeat an unhelpful cycle). In shifting your relationship with food, a starting place might be: “How’s my body feeling? My only job right now is to notice.”

3. Get curious where similar or interconnected patterns are showing up elsewhere.

When we have a pattern showing up in one area of our life, it’s pretty much guaranteed to be showing up in others and to impact all the others.

For example, Fear of Not Enough can manifest as overdoing it in the form of binge eating, overeating certain foods or all foods, excess consumption of alcohol or other drugs, shopping addiction, or overdoing it in relationships (which can look all kinds of ways).

Fear of Too Much can manifest as over-restriction and over-control in the form of anorexia, orthorexia, obsessive-compulsive patterning, and rejection of relationships and true intimacy. (For more on these fear-based patterns, including how they show up in my personal relationship with money, head here.)

Another entry into this exploration is noticing what’s happening in other areas of your life when you experience more (or less) food noise. Are there places that mirror or intersect with heightened preoccupation with food and eating? Are there predictable cycles in your home life, work life, relationships, or physical body?

Leaving no area unturned, where can you locate patterns and connections? Where, if you zoom out, do things tend to arise in a predictable way, end up in a predictable way, and play out again and again? Whatever patterns you identify, pay close attention to how they intersect with your experience of food noise.

The idea isn’t to “solve” or “resist” anything. You’re getting curious and, with as much honesty, gentleness, and care as possible, becoming an expert in your patterns. You’re also noticing how and where they show up in your body.

*Tip: This is a great place to incorporate stream-of-consciousness journaling. Without censoring or editing, sit down and write for three pages on one or more of the following prompts: Where and how do I experience Fear of Not Enough (as relates to food and other areas)? Where and how do I experience Fear of Too Much (as relates to food and other areas)? When food noise feels most intense, what’s happening in other areas of my life? Are there any predictable cycles or patterns?

4. Now ask your body what it needs to feel energized, rested, strong, and at peace.

First, notice anything on the surface clamoring for attention (including food noise, which is itself a signal and message). Then ask (kindly, gently, with curiosity): What else is needed here? What (beyond what feels most urgent and insistent) does your body actually want and need?

If an answer arises, then ask: Okay, what else? Yes, and, what else?

Your body may feel shy to respond, so give it extra time, space, and chances to explore the question fully. Food noise offers a perfect opportunity and can even be your signal to pause and do this exercise.

It’s super important that you don’t get lost in storytelling, turn this into an intellectual exercise, or stray too far from how you feel in your body and your embodied experience.

Our minds want to keep consuming information and will come up with stories and justifications and plans and explanations all day long, but I promise you that isn’t going to quiet or solve the food noise. Just as we can’t consume or stress our way out of stress, we can’t solve a problem by doing the same thing that created it.

*Tip: For this practice to work, you’ll need to take time with it away from your screen. It won’t work just by reading these steps!

5. Notice, learn, and grow into what feels good.

Alongside noticing when food noise is the loudest, bring close attention to when your body and mind feel good and at ease. Spend as much time as possible studying, feeling into, and savoring those moments (this is internal work that you can do anytime, anywhere). As with food noise, pay close attention to any surrounding conditions, contributing factors, and patterns.

The more we notice and name what feels truly, deeply nourishing for our body and mind—especially in the moment, when we’re actually experiencing it—the more we’ll move towards that place naturally and act to prioritize and protect it.

Part of this “movement towards” is conscious; part of it (probably the most powerful part) is subconscious. If you notice and are really present when you feel at ease, your body and subconscious will take it from there, working behind the scenes on your behalf.

*Tip: Food and enjoying food isn’t the enemy! What needs to happen for you to truly savor your meals? And to feel good while eating them and afterwards? (We’ll revisit this in Part 3.)

6. Weave the above steps into your day AND create a daily, dedicated container of focused exploration and practice.

I recommend exploring food noise in real time, as it arises. Pay close attention to the timing, surrounding conditions, how it fluctuates and shifts, and what makes it louder or quieter, more insistent or calmer. Same goes for times when food noise is absent and when you feel at peace in body and mind—study them as they’re happening.

In addition to this everyday, throughout-the-day mindfulness, I’ve found it essential to have a dedicated, consistent practice—one where I’m doing nothing else but sitting (or standing or moving) in silence and listening to my body for a set container of time.

This can look all kinds of ways: For me, it looks like daily yoga and meditation. For you, it might look totally different. But if you want to connect to what you truly know and need, if you want learn to quiet food noise naturally, you’ll probably have to do this:

Choose one practice and stay consistent for days, months, years, decades. This might be yoga or meditation. It might be taking a walk in silence, without your phone. It might be watching the sunrise or sunset, or stream-of-conscious journaling, or simply sitting quietly without doing anything. Whatever you choose, resist jumping from aisle to aisle in the Supermarket of Spirituality & Healing. Commit to one thing and commit to staying. Stay through the discomfort. Stay through the boredom. Stay long enough that the discomfort and boredom move through. Stay long enough to go deeper and to truly listen.
Whatever your practice is, don’t make it about consumption. Turn off the outside noise and voices and advice and instructions. Turn towards deep solitude and silence. For five minutes or thirty minutes or sixty minutes each day, turn off outside messaging. This includes messages from things that promise connection but are another form of consumption: meditation apps, spiritual and self-help podcasts, even treasured books and your most trusted teachers. Those may support your practice, but don’t mistake them for the practice. Don’t forget to leave space for silence and spirit. Otherwise, there’s no way you’ll be able to hear and know what you need to hear and know.

*Tip: Ideally, do this practice at the same time each day; no exceptions, no negotiations. Surrender to the practice, rest from choice, make it easier for your nervous system (and body, and mind) to anticipate what’s coming and go deeper.

7. Seek support from a teacher or guide.

I’m deeply grateful for the teachers and guides in my life, and I’m pretty sure I’d be in a much different place without them. While such teachers can’t replace an internal practice, they can play a pivotal, even life-changing role.

When it comes to shifting default patterns (internal as well as external), my primary guide for more than two decades has been senior Buddhist teacher Gil Fronsdal. His presence and teachings have shaped my practice, my ethics, my approach to living, my writing, my work, my relationship to and perception of self and others.

If you want to explore Gil’s teachings as part of your own practice, you might start with his Introduction to Mindfulness series. I also recommend this more advanced retreat series, which aligns beautifully with learning to listen to our body, quiet food noise, and shift deep-rooted patterns. And he has hundreds of free talks here. (My own practice, which I’ll talk about more in Part 3, includes listening to one of Gil’s talks daily.)

If you don’t resonate with Gil, I recommend finding a teacher or guide you do resonate with—someone who can provide an external reference point and compass to support your internal practice.

*Tip: I also recommend working with a specific teacher over time, rather than skipping from one to the next. As with the practice as a whole, stay long enough to go deeper rather than scouting around for the “next shiny thing” or “promised solution.”

We don’t need to overcomplicate our body.

For me, everything above is an ongoing process and practice. Everything above may seem simple—too simple, even. But the most profound transformations in body and mind don’t come from complicating things, they come from getting really clear, really connected, and learning to stay with ourselves through ebbs and flows.

As Gil puts it: the body “is part of the intelligence of who we are,” and “the body is participating in how we think.”

We can numb, distract, and abandon ourselves; we can railroad our mind with discursive thinking, judging, planning, and storytelling; we can outsource our stories, thoughts, and beliefs to external voices.

We can return to what’s been right here, inside of us, all along. We can practice setting our mind’s agenda and other people’s agendas aside in order to listen deeply to what our physical body wants and needs to tell us.

This won’t come by reading about it (including reading essays like this one). It will come with embodied practice, patience, and time. Both through the act of listening and in how we respond, we can regain our body’s trust—even as we regain trust in our body.

What if the body is where freedom is?

There’s something precious that only comes when we fully commit and follow through on a practice that spans weeks, months, and eventually years—one that’s gracious and forgiving but requires us to be truly attentive and honest. Sometimes, it may feel like a struggle, uncomfortable, or just plain boring. That’s part of it. That’s where and how change happens.

The reward? We become more rather than less connected to our body—and learn how to better care for our body. We develop an internal sensitivity and reference point. We notice a growing sense of serenity and capacity that applies to every area of our lives and that no one can take from us. More and more of the time, we notice inner clarity and skillfulness influencing our actions.

And sure, it might be easy to dismiss everything above and say it’s way too much work. Or give reasons why we can’t possibly try, or insist that our condition is different. If you’re there, I get it—I’ve felt that way, too.

But this is about way more than Ozempic and food noise and the immediate moment. This is about the richness and aliveness of our short time here, in this body and form. So, whatever path we take, and however that path twists and turns, I encourage all of us to keep asking whether what we’re choosing contributes to a fuller, more present, more connected, more embodied life…or not.

The stakes? Well, as Gil asks: “What if the body is where love is? What if the body is where kindness is? What if the body is where freedom is?”

I don’t want you or me or any of us to miss it.

Stay tuned for Part 3 on physical caretaking.

In Part 3 of this series, I’ll build on the above steps, shifting from more internal Yin practices into more external Yang ones:

After asking our body what it needs to feel energized, rested, strong, and at peace, how do we take healthy, mindful action?
What do I personally do to take care of my physical body?
What ways of eating, moving, and living do I find supportive for quieting food noise?
What ways of eating, moving, and living tend to make food noise worse?

With “food stuff,” in particular, I’ve found this physical caretaking piece paramount (both in my personal experience of recovering from eating disorders and in working with clients as a Doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine).

This is in part because the worse we feel in our physical body, the less we want to be there—so the more tempting it is to disconnect and check out, which then leads to doing more of what hurts us and perpetuates the painful, harmful cycle. And, because we can’t actually turn our minds off, the food noise ramps up in reaction to the body’s distress.

For more on this, stay tuned for Part 3. That one will be behind the paywall, but you can upgrade your subscription for full access here:

Meanwhile, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

I’d especially love to hear from those who struggle or have struggled in the past with painful patterns related to food and eating. (As always in this space, you’re invited to share your personal experience; no unsolicited advice, political commentary, or spreading of hate and division, please.)

I know it can be extremely vulnerable to share about our bodies, our relationship to food, and our health and wellness choices. Please rest assured that anyone who offers you unasked for advice or opinions on your body, your health, and your choices will be removed from the comment section.

If you struggle with food noise, what does it feel like in your body? What physical sensations do you experience when food noise is happening? Where in your body do you experience them?
Are there certain conditions or circumstances that make food noise more likely or more intense? (I’m asking about you personally, as you experience it.)
Do you notice similar or interconnected patterns showing up in different areas of your life? Does your relationship with food parallel, mirror, or intersect with your relationship with other forms of consumption or other relationships?