Raisin Meditation

Why You Should Try It

Many of us spend our lives rehashing the past or rushing into the future without pausing to enjoy the present. Distracted from the world around us, our life might feel only half-lived, as we’re too busy to savor—or even notice—everyday pleasures.

Practicing mindfulness can help. Mindfulness helps us tune into what we’re sensing and experiencing in the present moment—it’s the ability to pay more careful attention to our thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations, without judging them as good or bad. Research suggests that it can not only reduce stress but also increase our experience of positive emotions.

One of the most basic and widely used methods for cultivating mindfulness is to focus your attention on each of your senses as you eat a raisin. This simple exercise is often used as an introduction to the practice of mindfulness. In addition to increasing mindfulness more generally, the raisin meditation can promote mindful eating and foster a healthier relationship with food. Try it with a single raisin—you might find that it’s the most delicious raisin you’ve ever eaten.

Why It Works

By increasing awareness of internal mental and physical states, mindfulness can help people gain a greater sense of control over their thoughts, feelings, and behavior in the present moment. Paying closer attention to the sensations of eating can increase our enjoyment of our food and deepen our appreciation for the opportunity to satisfy our hunger. Mindfulness can also help people become more attuned to hunger and fullness signals and therefore avoid overeating or “emotional eating.” In the words of mindfulness expert Jon Kabat-Zinn, "When we taste with attention, even the simplest foods provide a universe of sensory experience."

Evidence That It Works

Praissman, S. (2008). Mindfulness-based stress reduction: a literature review and clinician's guide. Journal of the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners, 20(4), 212-216.

Raisin Meditation is one of the practices included in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). Developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn and based on Buddhist teachings, MBSR is a six- to 10-week program that teaches various mindfulness techniques through weekly sessions and homework assignments. More information about this program is available in Kabat-Zinn’s book Full Catastrophe Living.

A review of research published between 2000 and 2006 concluded that MBSR is an effective treatment for reducing the stress and anxiety that accompany daily life and chronic illness.

Who Has Tried the Practice?

While there is no demographic data included in the above review, at least one study found that a mindfulness-based group therapy incorporating Raisin Meditation and Body Scan was effective in Japan. After eight weeks, Japanese people with depression and anxiety decreased in clinical symptoms and increased in self-compassion.

Research suggests that MBSR benefits the mental health of various groups, including the following:

• People in different cultures and countries, such as bilingual Latin-American families, university students in China, disadvantaged families in Hong Kong, low-income cyclo drivers in Vietnam, males with generalized anxiety disorder in Iran, Indigenous people in the Republic of Congo, and Aboriginal Australians.
• Women around the world, including pregnant women in China, rural women in India who experienced still-birth, at-risk women in Iran, Muslim women college students in the United Arab Emirates, American survivors of intimate partner violence, and socioeconomically disadvantaged Black women with post-traumatic stress disorder.
• People with certain diseases, such as New Zealanders with rheumatoid arthritis, male patients with heart disease in India, patients with diabetes in South Korea, cancer patients in Canada, breast cancer survivors in China, and HIV-positive individuals in Toronto, San Francisco, Iran, and South Africa.

More research is needed to explore whether, and how, the impact of this practice extends to other groups and cultures.

Keep in Mind

The suitability of this meditation may vary depending on your culture or other life circumstances. even when certain adaptations are made. For example, when researchers taught this exercise in Tagalog and a raisin was swapped for the culturally familiar tomato, the participating Filipino elementary and high school students showed no changes in depression, anxiety, or emotion regulation.

For MBSR in general, a 2015 study found that the program “improved depressive symptoms regardless of affiliation with a religion, sense of spiritually, … sex, or age.” However, other studies suggest that MBSR may not benefit everyone equally:

• When MBSR was administered in Massachusetts correctional facilities, male prisoners experienced less mental health improvement than female prisoners.
• MBSR may not be beneficial in all cultural contexts. For Haitian mental health practitioners and teachers, MBSR contradicted some of their cultural worldviews and everyday practices. Brazilian medical students who participated in MBSR experienced no significant changes in mental health or quality of life.

Sources

“Eating One Raisin: A First Taste of Mindfulness.” Extension Service, West Virginia University. 

Adapted from: Williams, M., Teasdale, J., Segal, Z., & Kabat-Zinn, J. (2007). The Mindful Way through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness. New York: Guilford Press.
 

For More

Visit the Center for Mindfulness, founded by Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D., at the University of Massachusetts Medical School

References

The Raisin Meditation can help us learn to savor the pleasures of food, rather than eating mindlessly. Are you attuned to the present moment? Take our Mindfulness quiz to find out: