So first on the list of things hunger does to you is distraction. If you’re hungry that’s what your mind will focus on. It makes perfect sense from a biological imperative standpoint. If you felt hungry but then your mind could wander you might not get around to eating. Since hunger is the body’s way of informing you more fuel is needed, that would mean eventually you’d run out of fuel. That, obviously, would be very bad for you. So once you get hungry your mind wants to focus on that need.
Now when you’re at work or doing something where getting food soon isn’t very likely you might be able to get your mind off of the hunger for a short bit of time. But go too long and the hunger pangs will reassert themselves and they’ll be much harder to drive away this time. We already covered why being really hungry is bad from a food choice perspective. What we want to cover today is more of a quality of life issue.
For every moment you’re focused on your hunger you’re not focused on something else. Like say that job that’s preventing you from getting up right now and taking care of the hunger pangs. Lack of focus on your work leads to lower job quality. Lower job quality leads to poor performance reviews from your superiors. And that can affect you in the wallet.
Or how about with friends. If you’re focusing on your hunger you’re not focusing on the people you’re interacting with. This can lead to interpersonal issues with the people you care about. It gets even worse when you go from hungry to “hangry”. Then you’re compounding the distraction with grouchiness and irritability.
Or what about opportunities to make things better for yourself? If your mind is on your hunger, you might be missing other things. You might have missed a sight that could have brought a smile to your face. Maybe someone you don’t know was being pleasant to you and you didn’t catch it because you’re distracted. Maybe that person could have been a really good friend, or maybe more. You’ll never know if you’re distracted and miss the opportunity to meet them.
How about the drive home? The drive between work and my home is full of trees, and pastures, and streams. It’s very scenic in some areas. If I’m just focusing on what I’m going to stuff my face with when I get home I’m missing the relaxing view most of the way home. Or maybe a cute critter or two along the way. Or even the occasional fireflies that come and go around here.
The key is when you’re distracted you just don’t know what you’re missing because, well, you missed it. And once you’ve missed it there’s usually no getting it back. So if there’s an easy to way to deal with the distraction of hunger, mainly just not feeling hungry, why not do that? I’m almost never hungry and it makes my life so much happier.
I spend considerably less time on thinking about food. Just a little bit before shopping once a week and then maybe a little bit at the beginning of the day. I don’t even really spend much time thinking about food when I’m eating. Eating for me is more about getting nourishment in then it is about a pleasure response for quieting my hunger. Sure I enjoy the food I eat. It’s delicious But it isn’t the same kind of response as when you fix a sugar craving. All the rest of the day I’m focused on what’s right in front of me. Mainly because I’m not hungry. It’s also because my keto diet just powers my brain better, but that’s for a different post.
So that’s it for distraction. Tomorrow I’ll cover how you make the best use of all this undistracted time, having more energy. Until then, how you have a great day.
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