Cooking as nervous system ritual
Twenty-two years ago, I couldn’t cook.
At the time I had chronic constipation, bloating, reflux, anxiety, yeast infections, migraines and exhaustion. Plus a deep disconnection from my body.
I followed a very specific diet to heal, which required cooking for myself. Until that point in my life I was the “take out queen”. When I stepped into my kitchen to cook from scratch, I had no skills or idea what I was doing. My food tasted bland. Cooking was boring and overwhelming.
But what I discovered inside my kitchen completely changed my life.
Cooking Became My Medicine
At first, cooking felt awkward. But there was something grounding about chopping vegetables, stirring broth, hearing the gentle simmer.
The smells and sounds anchored me back in my body, softening the anxiety that had ruled my digestion for years.
Without realizing it, I was slowly regulating my nervous system.
Nervous system regulation is very popular in the gut healing world. And eating is a daily requirement. Why not combine the two?
Cooking has been going out of fashion. Busy schedules, food deliveries and prepared foods make it easy to avoid. We’ve lost the healthy pace of a traditional lifestyle that kept us healthy through time.
The art of preparing our food from scratch, building community around it and slowing down to eat is a rare these days. Autoimmune and digestive issues are not.
We’re so disregulated, speeding through life, feeling lonelier or more overwhelmed than ever. We scroll or stay busy to distract from our feelings and live in our heads, not our bodies.
We prize outside information over internal knowing and overcomplicate healing.
Instead of piling more healing activities to your already packed to do list, why not use the tools already at your disposal. We all have kitchens and have to eat. Why not use this daily chore as a healing ritual, to reconnect, regulate and recover.
Cooking can be a healing, moving meditation that uses the senses to connect to the body. The senses are the only language the body understands. And how it interacts with the world.
We can use sensation to teach the body/ nervous system that food is safe, even if it turned on you in the past.
Food reactions come from an immune system that doesn’t feel safe, which takes its cues from a nervous system in fight or flight.
We can use food prep to down regulate the stress response to food, stopping the symptom cycle.
I give you are short vagal toning ritual below to help reprogram your subconscious body and nervous system to create safety around eating.
Cooking can be as powerful as meditation, breath work, or biofeedback because it uses all of your senses.
The science behind cooking and nervous system regulation
I started cooking to feed myself, but it turned into a practice of joyful regulation. And cooking for myself has remained a superpower that has kept me balanced through all the health bumps I’ve encountered over the last two decades, most recently pulling me out of a deep burn out and nervous system freeze (which is a common root cause of SIBO).
Today, we understand the science behind how this worked for me.
The gut and brain communicate through the vagus nerve, a key part of the parasympathetic nervous system, often called the “rest and digest” state.
When we cook mindfully, humming, breathing, feeling textures, enjoying tastes, we stimulate the vagus nerve.
This lowers cortisol, slows the heart rate, and literally tells the body:
“It’s safe to digest.”
So, cooking isn’t just nourishment.
It’s neurological regulation.
Each mindful chop, each deep breath in the kitchen, is a small act of rewiring. A chance to shift from survival into safety if done right.
For me the kitchen is where I cultivate trust. Each cooking experiment is an act of self love. Each shared bite is co-regulation.
This brings me back to a place where my body can tell me what’s right for it. Your body is the only one who knows what YOU need.
Our bodies are always speaking, we just push, think or worry too much to hear it. Or distract ourselves with distrust and outside information.
From IBS to Intuition
I know that cooking can be time consuming in a world that pushes speed and glorifies productivity.
But healing only happens with slowness and safety, not controlling, rushing or pushing. This is something you can learn.
And if you have an aversion to cooking, this message is particularly important for you. You can learn to connect to the super power inside you that was stolen by anxiety or nervous system imbalance.
The magic of the kitchen can teach you to listen.
These days, cooking is my creative outlet, my nervous system reset, and my intuitive compass. My passion projects were two cookbooks full of treats for people with digestive issues, to satisfy craving for healthy and fun foods.
Cooking as Nervous System Therapy
Cooking is how I reconnect when life feels chaotic or my body needs extra care. Here’s what cooking does that no supplement can:
- Rhythm regulates. The repetition of chopping and stirring slows your breath, which anchors your nervous system.
- Sound soothes. Humming, sizzling, and a steady boil stimulates vagal tone and calms your heart.
- Scent grounds. The aroma of foods like herbs, baked apples or broth tells your body you’re home and safe.
- Presence heals. When you cook with awareness, your body shifts from fight-or-flight to feed-and-rest. And you are much less likely to react to your meal. As you cook with presence your stomach acid increases, cortisol lowers and your immune system calms.
My Invitation to You
You don’t need to be a chef to heal this way. Far from it. Fun trumps perfection. Presence is better than doing it right. All you need is the willingness to slow down and listen.
Consider combining the standard vagal toning and somatic regulation techniques with your daily cooking tasks. Hum when you cook. Breathe gratitude into the ingredients, stop to smell something pleasant. Listen to music or pleasant kitchen sounds.
Most people with digestive issues have escaped into their heads a long time ago, living in a state of mental overstimulation.
Your senses are the doorway to reconnecting to your body and accessing your nervous system. You can come back to the wisdom of your body through simple daily tasks. I will be sharing more posts about this in the future.
For now, the next time you cook try any one of these regulation tools used in somatic therapy sessions to calm food fear and reactions.
- Pause before you begin cooking & visualize yourself eating a peaceful meal with a calm belly.
- Take a deep breath and hum softly as you cook.
- Pause to feel your feet on the floor to ground into your body.
- Look around your kitchen, taking it all you see.
- Smell your ingredients or smell your food before you eat and chew slowly
- Stir or chop with presence or intention.
- Light a candle and take 2 “humming” breaths (long exhale with the sound voooo)
