Stop at 80%

There’s a Japanese concept to eating called hara hachi bu, translated to be “Eat till you’re 80% full”.

I tried this before back in the day when I was fresh off an extended meditation retreat in a Buddhist monastery. How it works:

• Eat slower than your usual pace - the feeling of fullness is not instant, so eating slower help the sensation catch up with the pace of your eating
• Eat mindfully - eating slowly doesn’t help if you’re not also eating with mindfully, with awareness of your bodily sensations and feelings. You have to be actively listening to hear the whispers from your tummy.
• Eat till satiated, not full. Because the fullness sensation is delayed, you’d have over-ate by the time you feel full. Very often you’ll start to feel bloated after that. So just eat to the point of feeling satiated, when you no longer feel hungry, or the impulse to eat more. Satiation usually hangs around 80%, I believe.

The first point leads to the second, second leads to the third, in a virtuous cycle. The benefits are obvious:

• Healthier, balanced eating
• Greater enjoyment
• More calm

Hara hachi bu got me thinking, beyond just a case for mindful eating, to consumption in general:

What if we stopped at 80% for all forms of consumption – food, media, conversations, ideas, thoughts?

Taking it further, from input to also output:

What if we worked to just 80% of our limit?

I can imagine the very same benefits listed for eating to apply too, to all forms of consumption, and output.

By not firing on all cylinders, and not constantly pushing ourselves to the limit, we also prevent burnout, keep pace with our deeper needs, and overall, maintain a better environment for our sanity and wellness.

Body, mind and soul.

So, work hard, work smart but stop at 80%. Always leave some juice left at the end of the day, so that you’ll be jumping back for more tomorrow.

Hara hachi bu.