You wouldn't like me when I'm hangry
You wouldn’t like me when I’m hangry
Last year, I was writing my Camino memoir in Australia for two months, when late morning, my host suggested a visit to the local town to purchase a couple of items I had forgotten. Thoughtful. He parked up outside a small mall where I found mascara, shower wash and a swimming hat, then suggested we mosey down the attractive independent high street he was keen to show me.
My growling stomach, however, was reminding me it was already lunchtime. Obligingly, I meandered after him down the bright and bustling street, at the end of which I saw… a bakery advertising freshly-baked pies, the smell of which wafted enticingly towards me. Not the most nutritious lunch-grab, but breakfast is a too-distant memory and I am feeling really peckish now. Let’s pop in here to get something for lunch, I say. Let’s finish walking up the other side of the street first, he says. No thank you, I need to eat, I say. But I’d like to finish the walk first, he says.
Oh dear. Stalemate. His system-loving brain wants to recreate his regular shopping pattern. But despite my usually generous empathy and tendency to people-pleasing, I no longer care because I. Am. Hangry.
It’s a feeling you are probably familiar with: You are hungry and growing hungrier by the second. Your hunger is making you increasingly irritable, impatient, angry. You are officially hangry.
According to Merriam Websters Dictionary, hangry is an adjective that describes being irritable due to hunger, a clever portmanteau word combining hungry and angry. The dictionary people cite the first written use of hangry from a story in The London Magazine in 1992. With the rise of its use on the internet, it formally entered the dictionary in 2018.
Though small, our brains use 20% of our body’s energy. When our blood sugar drops, our cognitive function and emotional regulation are impacted, leading to irritability, poor concentration and impulsive behaviour.
Here on the pavement, I can physically feel this lack of fuel causing my body to release the hormones adrenaline and cortisol to mobilise stored energy—the same fight-or-flight hormones that got released to help us stay alert when our cave-dwelling ancestors were stressed or under threat. Except now they make me feel on edge and reactive. My brain has gone into survival mode, prioritizing the search for food over everything else.
And there’s more. My mood-boosting serotonin and dopamine levels have dropped due to hunger, creating feelings of irritability, anxiety and lowering my mood.
The hunger hormone ghrelin which triggered my appetite is affecting my emotional reactivity and increasing feelings of aggression. When you’re hungry, your brain also produces a chemical called neuropeptide Y—a chemical that makes you feel more hungry associated with both aggression and anxiety, two hallmarks of hanger.
These hormonal shifts are why being hungry can feel more like a major crisis than a mild inconvenience.
Needless to say, my host in unaware of these biological and emotional challenges as he says but it’s only another ten minutes to finish the circuit… I am not proud of snapping: you walk around as much as you like. I need food and I need it now. I am crossing the road to the pie place this minute.
The startled look on my companion’s face at my over-reaction to what he had clearly considered a reasonable suggestion, shows me I need to check in with myself about why- beyond the hanger- I reacted so strongly.
One of the first studies to explore how hunger affects our emotions was carried out under Professor Viren Swami, a social psychologist at Anglia Ruskin University, after his colleagues had called him hangry on several occasions. He concluded his in-depth study of 64 adults in several countries by saying, it turns out being hangry is a real thing.
He believes being able to recognise and label the emotion can itself be of help. A lot of the time, we might be aware of what we are feeling but not understand the cause of it. If we can label it, we are better able to do something about it… mitigate against the negative effects, he said.
And that is exactly what I now need to do. Beyond low blood sugar, what really is the source of my outburst? On my therapeutic journey, I have learnt that when we are hysterical, it is historical. By which I mean that when we find ourselves over-reacting to the current situation, the strength of emotion is usually caused by triggers from unresolved past challenges, often traumatic situations, brought into the present like magma from our emotional core, flowing upwards through vents to the surface.
As I reflect, a memory comes unbidden: It is June 1996. I am almost thirty years old, five months pregnant and growing another human being- our first baby- inside me. A ten-day fly drive holiday around major Andalucian tourist hotspots to be immediately followed by my last board meeting before maternity leave starts on the day after I return, is not the restful break my expanding body needed. We are wandering the streets of Grenada after midday on our last couple holiday before parenthood, despite my repeated calls for food. It is boiling. My ankles are swollen and my legs hurt as my small frame struggles to grow a tall-like-his-father baby. Every place I suggest we enter is turned down under the unforgiving, perfectionist eye of my impossible-to-please husband. We keep walking as he peruses menu after menu, dismissing them all.
I have to face the possibility of his always-present undercurrent of anger by taking a stand. I need food. Now. Moody and resentful, he agrees to the restaurant I have stopped outside for no other reason than I can walk no further and the basket chairs look comfy. The only menu is in Spanish. I ask my husband for guidance, which in his current mood is not forthcoming.
I wonder aloud if the little fishes are likely to be maybe whitebait or sardines which I know I like? A shrug. I cross my fingers and order. At least there’s a bread basket to put me on. The little fishes arrive: a small bowl of tiny deep fried… squid. Not what me and my baby need right now. Not something I have ever eaten before, but I manage a few with the bread. I dare not order anything else for fear of the reaction. Extra time, more money. I am still hungry. Control. Control.
On the same holiday. We arrive in beautiful Rhonda for lunch. Again, a Spanish menu. My husband goes into the café to order something tasty for himself while I try to interpret the menu. On return, he tells me he has ordered the Chef’s special for me. It is apparently A Good Thing to taste the local dishes. Our meals arrive: his looks good, my ‘special’ turns out to be a bowl of inedible tripe floating in stock. Strangely, he is not keen to share his own meal. I am still hungry. Control. Control.
Another memory surfaces: It is the Summer of 1972. My super-stylish architect father and at-home mother are motoring down to the South of France for a sunny beach holiday with me and my brother in the back. My brother is thirteen, I am five. We don’t know it, but this will be the last holiday we all have together for over thirty years until both he and I are ourselves parents.
Goodness knows how many ‘are we nearly there yets?’ were uttered on that unpleasantly long journey, cooped up in the heat when I Spy and Car Colour Bingo were the biggest pre-technology distractions. They make a handsome couple, my parents. My brown-eyed father dark and dashing, with the collar-length hair and generous moustache of the Seventies icons. My mother the model fifties housewife, lipstick at 4pm, dinner on the table at 6pm. Always immaculate, sea green eyes, blonde beehive, petite and Oh. So. Slim.
I was what is known as a picky eater. Mainly textural and likely as a result of being force-fed boiled vegetable slop (finally resulting in vomiting) by domineering dinner ladies in my 70s primary school dining hall, a complete vegephobe until I had left university. An incipient addiction to sugar via my sweet shop-owning uncle for the mood boost. Goodness knows what French food I felt able to eat on the journey. I do remember my father hated to break the journey. ‘I just want to get there’ or ‘there’s another service station in thirty miles’ he would say to suggestions of snack or toilet stops. But upon arrival at our apartment on the beach, I remember two things clearly: my mother’s histrionics about the ants crawling over every surface and my crippling stomach pains, so bad my mother thought she may have to find a doctor. Not wishing to disappoint my father and brother- men for whom the language of love is most definitely food- who had set their hearts on a good meal out and would undoubtedly grumble, she ushered them off to stay home with me. A good cure-all in our house was- and on occasion still is- a double carb boost of banana on toast. So, trial and error before l’hopital, mum made the rare snack and gave it to me. Twenty minutes later, the hunger pangs, as they surely were, had gone and I felt right as rain. Control. Control.
Girls who are pickers don’t always wear big knickers! There are other rules around food in my childhood I have spent decades unlearning. How hungry is not good. How women must not have to be and remain slender with flat stomachs to stay attractive to men and not let themselves go. What we eat, when we eat, how we eat. The value of between meal snacks for those of us with smaller appetites, enjoying making and sharing food with others, what balanced nutrition looks like, food as medicine: low GI foods, volume protein; reducing sugar dependency for the dopamine rush…
Thankfully on my mental health recovery journey I have been given some life-changing psychotherapeutic techniques which I can now utilise to help me rid my body and mind of this trapped trauma and unpleasant memories which continue to affect me and my current relationships in the present.
Neuroscientist Dr. Camilla Nord leads the Mental Health Neuroscience Lab at the University of Cambridge. Writing about hanger, she says that the brain constantly monitors the internal state of the body, a process called interoception, to help us survive. Interoception doesn’t just monitor the body for signs of hunger or illness, but for emotions.
A brain region called the insula detects whether or not you’re hungry or angry and may confuse this homeostatic deviation for an emotion.
Simply bringing awareness to hanger can help you feel better, Dr Nord has found, recommending journalling or a mood tracker to help. When you realize it is hunger, not true anger, the emotional features tend to dampen or go away.
When we are hangry, our emotional centres tend to take over, while our logical thinking takes a backseat. This can lead to overreacting in situations we would typically handle calmly. This is why hanger doesn’t just affect us—it can strain our relationships as well.
A 2014 study of 107 married couples, found that people with low blood glucose were more likely to snap at loved ones, misinterpret neutral comments, or overreact to minor issues.
Study author, Dr. Kass says this is common. When you are hungry, you often interpret other people’s words as challenging. You may misinterpret what they are saying, become defensive and lash out,” he says. “This is because hunger shifts the focus to survival. You prioritize your immediate needs over cooperation or empathy for others.
We are told to HALT conflict or important decision making when we are Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired with good reason, this science tells us.
Coping with hanger isn’t just about eating well. It’s about learning to recognize the signals our bodies send and responding with care, something many of us women have not been encouraged to do.
Dr Nord concludes: I think this is why so many people like the term “hanger.” These neologisms aren’t just amusing; they tell us that we’re not alone in our experiences. By adding hanger to my vocab, I feel better able to identify what’s going on in my body—which, in itself, can be quite a relief.
It’s been a year of helpful self-reflection and therapeutic journeying since ‘Pie Gate’. Other deeply supressed memories relating to that feeling of being controlled I find so unbearable, have begun to surface in the way unresolved issues can when we give ourselves permission and welcome them in a spirit of self-compassion for healing. I am ready to analyse other over reactions to heal from past trauma. I have talked honestly about food and eating with my mother. This year I am again on a working holiday with my Australian host. I have apologised, explained and planned carefully to avoid hanger arising for mutual harmony. There have been pies.
To misquote the hapless Dr David Banner, AKA The Hulk, don’t make me hangry, you wouldn’t like me when I’m hangry!
This process is one to try when you feel the historical is causing out of proportion feelings today. It’s based on the Gestalt Empty Chair technique.
Although it may feel strange or uncomfortable at first, I really recommend you try a few times. I can only say that despite having to face painful supressed feelings and emotions, this technique alone has helped me beyond anything I could have imagined.
1. Find a safe, warm space where you won’t be overheard or rushed. Some people find their car (if you have access to one) in a quiet spot works well.
2. Take time to sit and let the feelings you experienced during the original incident emerge. Feelings you couldn’t express for whatever reason, in my case due to my husband’s controlling personality and my fear of his reactions. Name those feelings and let them surface. Tears, trembling, screaming, shouting… whatever you need to do to externalise those trapped emotions.
3. Imagine the person who has affected you sitting in a chair next to or in front of you and tell them how you felt at the time or now. Let your truth out. This might involve anger, fear, tears, disappointment. Don’t hold back. Some people find a pillow helpful to muffle screams of pain or punch the anger out.
4. When you feel you have done what is needed on the incident you remembered, stop for today. Usually, handling one memory at a time is enough. You can always note down other memories that rise and give yourself space to deal with those at another time. Allow feelings of self-compassion to rise. It is important to conclude the exercise by saying sorry to yourself that this happened to you and is still affecting you.
5. Once it seems all the suppressed emotion connected to that memory is out, decide to let it go. Those stored emotions have tied you to the past memory causing current situations, similar to the original memory, to trigger the same trapped emotions. Once they have gone, the memory can remain without the emotional pain attached. You know it happened, but you will no longer get the jolt of pain or adrenalin associated with the original trauma.
Sometimes with hugely traumatic events like abuse or bereavements, we may need to come back to that memory or others associated with it to work through them again.