Last updated on June 27th, 2024 at 06:22 pm
Head hunger is the experience of having intense cravings for food while not physically feeling the need to eat.
Head hunger is characterized by:
- Intense food cravings
- Urgency to eat
- Feeling protective of food
- Guilt and shame following a meal
If you’ are someone who is experiencing non-physical hunger, you might feel like you have lost control of your experiences with food.
However, head hunger is a perfectly normal physical response to food restriction.
This article will explore what causes non physical hunger, the physical sensations of hunger that happens in your head, and how to satisfy your hunger.
Can You Feel Hunger In Your Head
Yes.
Many times the sensations of hunger you feel in your head are related to:
- Low blood sugars (hypoglycemia)
- Shifts in the hunger hormones ghrelin and leptin
- Changes in dopamine and serotonin levels
Shifts in hormones and changes in blood sugars often occur as a result of food restriction. Hormonal, enzymatic, and blood sugar shifts can actually make it feel like you are hungry in your head versus your belly.
It’s important to know if you are experiencing dizziness, lightheadedness, or headaches this can actually be dangerous. When these symptoms result from low blood sugar, they are not symptoms that should simply be “toughed out.”
Treating low blood sugars should be discussed with your doctor or dietitian.
What Causes Head Hunger
Bariatric Surgery
Bariatric surgery involves surgically reducing the size of the stomach. If you have undergone weight loss surgery, you will likely at some point experience mental hunger.
Bariatric surgery results in head hunger because:
- Your body is not physically able to eat what it metabolically needs
- Social experiences with food trigger hunger hormones
- Emotional experiences with food trigger hunger cues
Even though a person has physically altered their body through weight loss surgery, the hormones and enzymes associated with hunger are still triggered in response to food.
Your body also still remembers the emotional and cultural experiences that it has in the past when certain foods were present.
The social and physical memories of these experiences after weight loss surgery result in what is often described as insatiable mental hunger.
Binge Eating
Binge eating can cause changes in our hunger and fullness cues.
Binge eating is often the result of food restriction. Once you being to restrict your food, you will likely find yourself in a vicious binge restrict cycle. This cycle is triggered by physical and hormonal changes in the body and results in head hunger.
Head hunger related to binge eating triggers:
If you are binge eating, a surge of dopamine will occur in response to your first bites off food. As you progress through the meal, the dopamine decreases and stress hormones increase. Some people are able to suppress their appetites and ignore their mental hunger during the day only to lead to night time binging.
The only way to get rid of the mental hunger associated with binge eating is to stop the food restriction that leads to the binge in the first place.
For a person with binge eating disorder, seeking out a dietitian specializing in eating disorders can help. Your dietitian can support you in implementing a recovery meal plan for binge eating.
Dieting
Chronic dieters are subject to head hunger. You are likely to experience non-physical hunger in response to dieting because:
- Caloric restriction causes hormonal shifts in attempts to get you to eat
- Food rules make off limits foods seem even more tempting
- Isolation from social events increases stress responses
- Volume eating of low calorie foods while restricting healthy fats
Your body is not stupid. It knows how much energy it needs to eat every day in order to sustain optimal brain and body function. It will shift all metabolic and mental processes in order to ensure its energy needs are met.
Most dieting attempts will result in weight loss rebound because as a result of an uptick in both mental and physical hunger.
Eating Disorders
Eating disorders and head hunger are commonly coupled. This is because most eating disorders are extremely restrictive in nature.
Eating disorders often result in:
- Fantasizing about food
- Ritualistic patterns or eating and meal prep
- Uptick in hunger hormones
- Physical changes in the brain to accommodate for food scarcity
Eating disorders might result in delayed digestion which suppresses hunger cues in the height of the eating disorder. Altered metabolism is necessary to preserve a person’s vital organs in an eating disorder.
However, as soon as food is allowed again people can experience hypermetabolism and seemingly insatiable hunger. This is the body’s attempt to restore weight.
How Do You Get Rid of Head Hunger
Here are 7 steps for getting rid of head hunger:
- Eat regularly throughout the day (every 3-4 hours)
- Eat all types of foods
- Make eating an enjoyable experience
- Eat mindfully and be present with your food
- Eat dessert first or vary up the meal structure
- Honor all types of hunger (emotional and physical)
- Practice respecting your body
If you have undergone weight loss surgery or are in recovery from an eating disorder, these strategies may be a little more difficult to achieve.
However, the more you are able to implement these steps the closer you will get to a peaceful relationship with food.
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