“Hangry”?

Although not everyone is familiar with the term, almost everyone is familiar with the feeling. Hangry, meaning hungry and angry, is the colloquial word for describing the emotional rollercoaster you feel within yourself or notice in someone else when they get so hungry they become angry or irritable.

The term has gained popularity in recent years and accurately portrays a scenario that triggers a cascade of physiological responses.

So, let’s dig into the hangry meaning, why you should care, and what you can do when you feel hangry.

Is hangry a real thing?

Hangry is indeed a real word, so much so that the Oxford English Dictionary recognized and added it in 2018 – citing its use since 1918!

As far as behavior changes, those too are also real: Studies show the state of being hangry is identified with a low blood sugar level, which in turn affects the hormone ghrelin – known to increase food/reward behavior, impulsive behavior, anger, and aggression levels.1 In some, hangry might not be associated with anger specifically, but is generally associated with negative emotions like edginess, stress, and disgust. 

When does hangry occur? 

It is different for everyone because we all have a different level of tolerance to low blood sugar. 

In one study, researchers found that feelings of hunger start when your blood sugar drops to around 87 mg/dL, but with training, it is possible to accurately estimate blood glucose levels based on sensations of hunger when at low glucose levels.2 This is useful for people who don’t continuously track their blood sugar level or for those who consistently wait to eat until they are hungry – or hangry.  

The dip in blood sugar triggers a cascade of hormone responses to rebalance its level. The stress hormone cortisol and the fight-or-flight hormone adrenaline are both released to increase blood glucose. But if you wait too long, the hormonal response can be futile, and hangry sets in.

Hunger affects how you perceive your environment

Hangry might make you think the glass is half-empty. 

In an in-lab study,3 researchers found that hunger shifts perceptions to a negative context, as opposed to a neutral or positive context. The study used images of familiar things, like a puppy, snake, or computer, to provoke positive, negative, or neutral feelings, followed by an intentionally ambiguous image, such as a Chinese pictograph. Participants were asked to rate their hunger levels and to rate the ambiguous pictograph on a scale of pleasant to unpleasant. The result? People were more likely to rate the ambiguous pictographs as unpleasant the hungrier they were.

Hangry feelings can turn even the nicest person sour. A second part of the in-lab study found that hunger levels can greatly affect a person and situation, and those who were hungrier negatively judged another person without being aware of it.3 This is reason enough to avoid getting to the point of being hangry at work or at home.

In field studies, researchers have examined associations between everyday experiences of hunger and negative emotions. Participants reported hunger, anger, irritability, pleasure, and arousal at five times throughout the day. They found greater levels of self-reported hunger were associated with greater anger and irritability and lower levels of pleasure.4 

If being hungry doesn’t make you irritable or angry, then you likely experience a combination of fatigue, sleepiness, difficulty concentrating, and poor coordination, often leading to increased likelihood of making mistakes in mental or physical performance. These responses are also signs of lower blood sugar and should be recognized and acted on. 

How to stop being hangry

1. Recognize your hangry symptoms. Hangry can manifest as angry and edgy, or tired, quiet, and clumsy. You might even go through each stage.

2. Figure out how long between a meal or snack you can last. Look into using a continuous glucose monitor – it won’t take long to learn how your body responds to food. It can help you track blood sugar levels over time and determine an eating pattern that works for you.

When glucose is high you might not notice many symptoms depending on the level. Take a walk, drink water, and wait before consuming more simple carbohydrate sources – stick to foods with mostly proteins or healthy fats, which will have less of a sugar-spiking effect. If it is low and you notice hangry symptoms, then the continuous glucose monitor can help you learn your threshold and what foods act quickly to raise your blood sugar and reverse the feelings.

3. Dietary style makes a difference. Blood sugar can spike and then subsequently fall when too many carbohydrates are consumed at once, or even a small amount of fast-acting simple carbohydrate. Similarly, those who practice intermittent fasting can experience spikes and dips because of the nature of intake timing. A Mediterranean-style diet that limits simple sugars and incorporates healthy fats from foods like fish and nuts and high-fiber foods supports stable blood sugar the hours after a meal.

4. Be prepared and keep a satiating food source nearby. Although a piece of fruit might quickly help, keep an extra granola bar, trail mix, or Thorne’s Mediclear-SGS or Whey Protein handy for when hangry sets in. Each convenient option has a mix of carbohydrates, protein, and fats that can negate the hangry feeling, stabilize hormones associated with hunger and cravings, like ghrelin and leptin, and support a healthy blood sugar level.*

5. Consider ketones. Taking a ketone supplement or following a low-carbohydrate ketogenic diet will raise ketone levels in the blood, helping the body use fat stores as an energy source to maintain an appropriate blood sugar level. Many individuals notice the effects of the sustained energy supply to the brain, combating the biggest effect of being hangry.

6. Stay hydrated. Many confuse their mood changes with hunger when it can be an effect of dehydration. In a study that analyzed how much fluid women regularly consumed, women who consumed fewer ounces daily had higher levels of tension, depression, confusion, and total mood disturbances compared to women who consumed higher volumes of fluid.5

References

  1. Anderberg RH, Hansson C, Fenander M, et al. The stomach-derived hormone ghrelin increases impulsive behavior. Neuropsychopharmacology 2016;41(5):1199-1209.
  2. Ciampolini M, Bianchi R. Training to estimate blood glucose and to form associations with initial hunger. Nutr Metab 2006;3:42.
  3. MacCormack JK, Lindquist KA. Feeling hangry? When hunger is conceptualized as emotion. Emotion 2019;19(2):301-319.
  4. Swami V, Hochstöger S, Kargl E, Stieger S. Hangry in the field: An experience sampling study on the impact of hunger on anger, irritability, and affect. PLoS One 2022;17(7):e0269629.
  5. Muñoz CX, Johnson EC, McKenzie AL, et al. Habitual total water intake and dimensions of mood in healthy young women. Appetite 2015;92:81-86.