![\"Hunger](\"https:\/\/www.weight-loss-center.net\/weight-loss-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/hunger-pangs.jpg\" "\\"What")
Hunger Pangs are a nagging desire to eat that can be caused by both physiological and pshychological triggers, such as the sight of a favorite food. <\/p><\/div>\n
I’m sure most people, especially ones who are dieting, are all too familiar with what is known as “hunger pangs”. Hunger pangs are used to describe the\u00a0contractions of your empty stomach as it expresses its great upset in being left unfed. You may think that it is your stomach to blame for these feelings, but actually there are many causes of hunger pangs that have nothing to do with your nagging stomach.<\/p>\n
Hunger is one of the most recurring and discomforting feelings people experience. The feeling of hunger is mostly related with the intense desire or need for food and it can be caused by psychological factors or physiological factors or both.<\/p>\n
Although the physiological causes for hunger pangs\u00a0are not quite understood, most believe it either has to do with contractions of the stomach or lowered blood glucose levels. A lowered body temperature can also trigger hunger pangs, which may also help to explain seasonal weight gain<\/a>.<\/p>\n Psychological factors play an active role in causing hunger pangs. Most of us have\u00a0a number of\u00a0eating habits\u00a0that have\u00a0been learned over time and some are deeply rooted in our subconscious. People have a tendency to become hungry because of the patterns and behaviors that they have learned throughout their lives. This is demonstrated by the way some people feel hungry just because it is noontime. Some eat not because they are hungry but because eating at certain times or during certain activities has just become part of their routines.<\/p>\n All of the five senses are known to trigger hunger pangs and one of the strongest is the sense of sight. One may not be feeling hungry, but immediately a food commercial comes up on television and hunger is triggered. I experience this all the time when I’m watching TV at night. I’ve had a nice dinner and then I see a fast-food commercial and I’m hungry again. There is also a physiological process that is occurring here too due to the sight of\u00a0carby food, called an insulin response<\/a>. If it was up to me, I would ban all food commercials.<\/p>\n Smell is another one of the senses that triggers hunger pangs in people. This usually comes up when a person smells their favorite food or something that is related to their favorite food. For example, has you ever walked past a bakery and gone in and bought a tasty treat just because of the smell?<\/p>\n Finally there is the most obvious sense, taste. Tastes triggers hunger pangs\u00a0when one tastes a small portion of food and they immediately develop a desire for more. I think that not everybody’s taste triggers are the same, but for the most part salty and sweet foods trigger more of a response than bland foods. For example, I don’t see the taste of brussel sprouts triggering hunger pangs for many of us.<\/p>\n Unknown to quite a number of people, different colors have the ability to also trigger hunger pangs. Where food is concerned, the colors mostly known to trigger hunger are green, yellow, red and orange. This explains why most popular restaurants prefer to use the above colors in their logo. On the other hand, some colors are also known to suppress appetites and one such color is blue.<\/p>\n Satiety is also related to hunger, but it is important to note that the satiety and hunger mechanisms are not exactly the same. Satiety has two mechanisms; one at the level of the brain and the other at the level of the gastrointestinal tract. Two places exist in hypothalamus; a brain part tasked with controlling eating and hunger. The ventromedial nucleus, which is the nucleus of the hypothalamus, is the one that is in charge of giving the signal when one is supposed to stop eating while the lateral hypothalamus is tasked with signaling when one should start eating. Ventromedial nuclei\u2019s function makes people feel satisfied at the level of the brain. At gastrointestinal tract level, satiety is known to originate from a person\u2019s stomach which is in control of short- term eating.<\/p>\n Hunger is generally triggered by a number of factors, both\u00a0physiological and psychological, which sometimes work together. Try not to be a slave to the borborygmus of your nagging stomach. Although hunger pangs can be very distracting and sometimes distressing, if you know you have eaten enough then try not to cave in to them. Instead, drink a big glass of cool water and wait a few minutes for the hunger pangs to subside.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hunger pangs are used to describe the contractions of your empty stomach as it expresses its great upset in being left unfed. You may think that it is your stomach to blame for these feelings, but actually there are many causes of hunger pangs that have nothing to do with your nagging stomach. <\/p>\n