The semi-final matches were telecasted on a big screen in the community hall. We went there one afternoon and watched a few overs with English commentary. There were way too many ads though we weren't paying much attention to them. After spending some time there, we decided to go back to our apartment.
As we were walking back, we both uttered this sentence at the same time, "How about we order some samosas? It's been a long time!". There was an ad for a paint brand (I guess) that showed a plate of samosas. Our minds didn't register the product or the brand name, but were more focused on the samosas that looked so delicious!😉 We ended up ordering samosas and enjoyed them that evening.
I remember when we used to watch Masterchef Australia episodes regularly, we would end up drooling, seeing those perfectly plated plates. We would be tempted to binge on snacks (if available at home) or place an order.
What we feed our senses creates an impact, consciously or subconsciously, with or without our awareness.
Vision is one of the most powerful senses and the most overused one in today's time of gadgets and devices.
Being mindful of what our eyes see is vital for our mental and emotional well-being. A few ways to bring in this mindfulness:
- When we use social media, try to give more priority to your curated feeds - posts of people whom you follow. There is no guarantee that the feed of reels/shorts from strangers or random accounts will be pleasing to the eyes. We might inadvertently end up consuming content that can be disturbing or inappropriate.
- If a certain person's content disturbs you or makes you angry/anxious/fearful, stop following their content.
- Avoid using your phone just before bed. Stay away from your smartphone/TV/laptop at least an hour before bedtime. The content that we watch just before sleep continues to play in our subconscious and disturbs our deep sleep.
- Avoid watching food-related content when you are hungry!🙂 It increases the odds of ordering high-calorie, processed foods from food delivery apps.
- Before you decide on a movie/OTT series to watch, look at the certification granted by the censor board. These days, even a movie with U/A certification has disturbing scenes. Look at the content adjectives given to the movie/series in the Description section and if you see words like gore, violence, sensitive, for a mature audience only, sexual content, substance use, etc, avoid such content even if the IMDB rating is high or you hear good reviews.
- If you stop eating processed/junk foods for some time and you taste them after a break, your taste buds will reject them and find them unappealing. You might feel "This is too sweet / too salty / artificial tasting". Similarly, when you stop watching disturbing content for a while and you watch it after a break, you will feel more sensitive to such gore, violence, or explicit scenes and your mind will automatically start rejecting such type of content. Let's bring back that sensitivity not only to our tastebuds but to our minds as well.