Our bodies exhibit different kinds of emotions and some of them are the reasons why we feel the sensation of hunger.
Listed below are a few of these reasons why we feel hungry;
- When we get little or not enough sleep
- When we eat little or not enough protein
- When we eat little or not enough fiber
- When our body takes in little or not enough water
- When our body lacks the right amount of nutrients
- When we feel stressed
- When we eat few meals
- When we eat lots of sweet foods
The Seven types of hunger and why they matter.
In my experience as a nutritional therapist and a health coach, I have learned that there are seven kinds of hunger that exist; some are psychological while others are physical. If these different hunger types are unsatisfied, ignored, or not rightly nourished, then we may be tempted to want to satisfy them all with food and this may not be a good idea.
The various hunger types include:
Physiological and Sensational Needs: These include the stomach hunger that would usually manifest with symptoms like a growling stomach or other sensory cues like aroused appetite from food tasting, smelling of food, or upon seeing the food.
The hunger for control: This helps to provide us a sense of security, that feeling where we are able to control things happening around us so as to be able to determine their outcome
The hunger for variety: To put it differently, this is freedom from boredom, the fun in one’s ability to switch from one option to another
The hunger for relevance: Our desire want to feel important and to be noticed in our work, homes, communities and amongst our friends, colleagues, and family.
The hunger for love and connection: We all want to feel loved and cared for. As humans, we are naturally social beings that depend on healthy social and spiritual interaction for survival. Beyond the interaction, we also desire that feeling of love and care from someone we truly care about. Humans naturally detest loneliness or isolation.
The hunger for Growth: Humans are naturally adventurous, we always desire to go to new places, meet new people, doing and learn new things and we are always striving towards something, advancing towards growth, a better tomorrow, and a more fulfilling life.
The hunger to Contribute: Our need for connection makes it natural for us to want to reach out to other people either in love or in compassion. We are always desirous of giving back to people we think about in areas where we feel we can contribute our time, our skills, our resources. We all want to make a difference.
Our bodies and minds are constantly sending us signals about hunger throughout the day and if any of these needs are not met, our default survival mode is to try to meet them one way or another.
For cases of physiological hunger, it’s only appropriate for us to satisfy those hunger with food, but when it comes to the psychological hunger types; us turning to food, diets, or cooking as the way to respond to them might end up causing us more harm than good.
In summary, we can see that there are other types of hunger other than the typical physiological hunger that requires the attention of food. Various other types of psychological hunger exist and these hunger types deserve as much attention and satisfaction as the physiological ones. Responding with food to these other hunger types may prove to be disastrous as they’ll only end up making us less productive and feeling less fulfilled as humans.
You can share some of your experiences with us on the different occasions where you felt those psychological hunger types and what you did to satisfy them.
We hope to learn a thing or two from your experience.
With love as Always, Happy Living