Many foods produce physical reactions that can affect your ability to listen to others.  Any food that speeds up your metabolism will also speed up your conversational pace.  That will make it more difficult for you to be a good and patient listener.

Caffeine simulates the body's stress response.  Coffee or tea will speed up your conversational response and can lead to your dominating the conversational space.  Excessive salt in your diet can lead to hypertension, another word for stress.  Sugar will speed up your metabolism. Even wheat will speed up many people's conversational speed as well as produce the allergic response of irritability. In most cases the worst thing you could do is to have a cup of coffee and a donut, and think how often people 'go for a cup of coffee' as a way of trying to talk to each other.

Study your diet with a good physician or allergenist and find out how your diet may be pushing you through conversations faster than you really choose to go.

 

This is another way to start locally (2) by controlling your own behavior.  Controlling your diet is often easier on flextime (22) because you can coordinate with other members of your familymore easily.  When your diet is under control you will find it easier to pause (32), wait (33), and slow down (34).  Couple your diet with a plan to exercise (47).