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The integrated health care system I’m part of covers a really large area of Pennsylvania and now into New Jersey. There are more than a dozen hospitals and scores of outpatient sites with parts of our heart and lung program.
As the overall supervisor of everything and everyone involved in this “Heart Institute,” among the biggest parts of my job is keeping all pieces of the enterprise connected with each other. Conference calls and video links have become a very useful way to get our team together despite the distances that separate us. Anyone with kids at college can certainly understand this!
Last week, during an important call, one of our senior doctors, who is brilliant, enthusiastic and almost always reasonable, was oddly cranky. He was impatient, snippy and argumentative with some other participants over really trivial things. It was pretty disappointing to see and quite unusual for him.
After the call ended, I called him and asked if something was going on. He admitted that he had started a low-carbohydrate diet two weeks earlier and that just the day before his staff gave him a box, tied with a bow, with a bunch of candy bars in it and a note saying “You’re not yourself when you’re hungry!”
Do you feel your temper getting short when you’re hungry? Are you most irritable right before dinner time? If so, then you too are probably getting “hangry.”
Hangry, a portmanteau of hungry and angry, is a slang term that appeared sometime in the mid 1990s and made its way into the popular vocabulary. Basically, it’s when you get so hungry that you get angry too.
But why do we feel hangry?
A lack of food certainly stirs unpleasant and even volatile emotions in some people. That hangry feeling is created by a combination of your brain chemistry, anatomy and evolution.
The role of food
Food is fuel for your body. During digestion, your body breaks down food into its component parts — like sugars, proteins, vitamins and other substances. These nutrients are transported through the body to help you function.
Substances like glucose (sugar) are used to keep you energized and moving. When you don’t have enough food in your system, your brain signals to the rest of your body that you’re hungry.
The brain is one of the most energy-hungry (or energy-hangry?) organs in the body. Despite its relatively small size, it can use up to 30 percent of your daily energy.
When you feel hungry, it’s the brain’s perception that there’s not enough glucose in your system for it to continue functioning at the same rate. The brain perceives this as a potentially life-threatening scenario and signals the release of stress hormones in your body. All of these factors motivate you to go get something to eat.
From hunger to hanger
So now with a brain that doesn’t have enough energy and with stress hormones being released, you can see where things start to go awry emotionally.
When the brain’s metabolism is challenged, it can be harder to suppress emotions like frustration and anxiety — something that takes some degree of conscious thought. As stress hormones are released, it can also trigger a fight-or-flight response in the brain.
As an added factor, a chemical in your brain, neuropeptide Y, is released when you’re hungry. This chemical is related to hunger, but also happens to be involved in managing anger as well — making hunger and anger very closely linked.
The biology of hanger
So it seems there are quite a few body systems working together to associate your feelings of hunger and anger. But biologically speaking … why? What does being hangry do for our survival?
In terms of natural selection, it can do a lot. In today’s world, it can feel like food is unlimited — but in prehistoric times as we evolved into what we are today, access to food was usually extremely limited. Survival meant being the first one to get the food and eat it — so aggression came in handy (considering that early humans were likely fighting over food … like in some frat houses even today).
Ultimately, being hangry is a survival mechanism. It allows humans to be competitive in the fight to get food, which helps them stay nourished and survive.
The effects of being hangry
The effects of hunger on our emotions are very real.
Being ‘hangry’ can cause irritability, lack of focus, slurred speech and more.
Be aware of when you’re getting hangry, and take steps to avoid it:
• Know that the “rush” from junk foods can make you crash later — making you even more hangry.
• If you know you get hungry between meals, try to fit in some healthy snacks.
• Avoid skipping meals if possible.
• Instead of eating a few large meals, try eating more spaced-out, smaller meals.
• Try adding more fiber to your diet.
• Be mindful of your sugar intake — a doughnut is not the best option.
My cranky colleague now gets it. He’s adjusted his diet so that he’s no longer constantly thinking about food, and everyone’s happier.
Maybe we should send food to North Korea!
