Overloaded: How Every Aspect of Your Life Is Influenced by Your Brain Chemicals by Ginny Smith

Author:Ginny Smith [Smith, Ginny]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Psychology, Emotions, science, Life Sciences, Neuroscience, General
ISBN: 9781472969361
Google: POQiEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2021-04-01T23:53:33.115262+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

Food for Thought

We’ve all been there. Midday is approaching, and it feels like breakfast was days ago. You are sitting in a quiet office, trying to focus on the meeting, but you can’t help but be distracted by the growing sensations in your stomach. That queasy, gnawing feeling that you know means only one thing. Suddenly… grrRRrr… your stomach lets out a rumble1 loud enough to alert everyone in the room to your hunger. Hunger is a vital drive – it ensures we eat enough to survive and reproduce. But it isn’t as simple as it might first seem, and a lot of it is controlled by chemicals in your body and, perhaps surprisingly, your brain.

Hunger can be triggered by internal states like low blood sugar or a lack of fat reserves, but it can also be initiated by the smell or sight of food, or even by stress. But for me, it was something I didn’t experience until I was 11. I always liked my food, and as a child I ate pretty much whatever was given to me. But unlike some of my friends, whose parents had to have bags of snacks on them at all times, I never demanded food. I remember, vividly, waiting in my year six classroom to be dismissed for lunch, turning to my friend and telling her that I didn’t understand why I kept feeling weird before lunch – kind of sick, or like I had a tummy ache. She looked at me incredulously, replying, as if talking to a particularly stupid toddler: ‘You’re hungry.’

Since then, hunger has been a regular companion. I’m a grazer, and struggle to go more than a few hours without a snack, but get full quickly at mealtimes. In contrast, I have friends and family members who can skip lunch in order to really enjoy an evening meal out, and put away much bigger quantities, while I struggle to finish my main course. So why the differences? What is it, physiologically, that makes me unable to function without regular sustenance, while others don’t feel hungry until they sit down to eat?

The need to eat

Before we can dive into hunger in the brain, we need to understand what happens in our bodies when we eat. Keeping the level of sugar in the blood stable is vital for the function of our body and particularly our brain. If it gets too high, for too long, it can damage the eyes, kidneys and nerves. And if it is too low, symptoms such as dizziness, blurred vision and even seizures can occur. Luckily, in most people, our bodies work to prevent either of these extremes from happening, without us having to think about it.

When we eat something containing sugar or carbohydrates, these molecules are rapidly broken down into glucose, which is absorbed through the lining of our small intestine into the bloodstream, causing an increase in blood sugar. Our pancreas detects the increase and releases a hormone called insulin, which encourages muscle and fat cells to take in the glucose.

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