Dear Reader:

Ever been hangry?

I don’t usually wait until I’m mad hungry to eat, but sometimes it’s difficult to get to something to take the edge off. My wife is one of those people who gets crazy when she’s hungry and if she isn’t fed she can be pretty hard to get along with until she’s had a meal that curbs her hunger pangs.

It’s funny that I found this article published in the Huffington Post in their Healthy Living section. With the help of an expert, they answer the question of why we get “grumpy hungry” when we take too long to get something to eat.

Here’s their expert’s reply to Why do I get so grumpy when I'm hungry?

Hangry. Grumpy hungry. No matter what you call it, we've all experienced it: that overwhelming irritability that takes over when we've gone too long without food. Turns out, there's some science behind it -- skipping meals can trigger us to feel overwhelmed with feelings. According to appetite behavior expert Paul Currie, a professor of psychology at Reed College, hunger can certainly prompt us to become emotional, and that can often manifest as feeling stressed or anxious.

"An organism, when it's hungry, can ignore hunger signals if it wanted to, but it wouldn't survive very long," Currie tells HuffPost. But if, in addition to those growling stomach pains, there was also a mind aspect -- increases in emotionality, anxiety and stress -- then those signals will be more likely to get the organism's attention.

"You might think we eat because it's pleasurable, but let's think about it, when you're truly hungry and watching everyone else eat, you're going to get a little bit emotional and anxious," Currie says. "Irritable, angry certainly, and the longer you deprive, there will be an increase in emotional response."

Our guts and our brains are not as disconnected as we may think, Currie adds. The appetite hormone ghrelin, for instance, is produced in the stomach, but receptors for ghrelin are present elsewhere throughout the body, including the brain's hypothalamus. In addition to stimulating feelings of hunger, ghrelin can also produce an anxiety response that goes away when you eat.

"It makes sense because these circuits and systems interplay with one another: same receptors, same anatomical structures," Currie says. "These behaviors don't occur in isolation, and it makes sense we're more irritable, more aware of our emotions [when we're hungry] because that'll reinforce the drive to seek food and to satisfy nutritional needs."

 

More health information is available at Brain Brawn & Body and find out about other healthy events on Healthy Happenings. I invite you to read, learn, enjoy!

 

Eric Von

Publisher/Editor