Why Do We Feel Hangry?

Have you experienced that anger when you have gone hungry for too long? Here’s how to deal with it.

Picture your usual group gathering of family or friends – you are all out to dinner and start off chatting nicely. If it is a late dinner or your meals take a while to arrive, the mood changes. As time wears on, everyone’s patience wears out. You turn into snapping turtles, dredging up old grievances and picking on each other. You are not usually that unpleasant; you are all just mighty, mighty hangry (hungry + angry).

If you have been known to snap at your loved ones, growl at waitresses and practically gnaw innocent bystanders’ arms off, you will be pleased to know that your hangriness is not all in your imagination and you are not alone. The phenomenon is all too real.

Feed The Ghrelin

Scientific studies have examined how aggression rises as blood glucose levels drop since your last meal. One study suggests judges pass heavier sentences the longer they have gone without food. In another examining married couples, people stuck more pins in a voodoo doll representing their partners as they became hangrier (yikes!).

At the Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute, associate professor Zane Andrews studies the science behind food and mood. The key to hangriness, he explains, is ghrelin, a hormone from the stomach that is important for regulating food intake, as well as your moods and motivation.

“As the food you have consumed goes through the intestine and your stomach becomes more and more empty, you start to release this hormone ghrelin,” he says. “If you do not eat, the parts of the brain that think you are hungry send signals to other parts of the brain that control your mood and emotions.”