How do you feel when you are hungry

Have you ever felt extremely angry and irritated out of nowhere, only to realize you hadn’t eaten in hours? That sudden wave of irritability when hunger strikes is what we’ve come to call "hanger." 

Hangry is a term that refers to feeling irrationally angry, irritable, or moody because you’re hungry.

And it isn’t just an excuse to snap at your partner over something trivial—research shows it’s a real thing.

Hanger is pretty common, says Noah Kass, DSW, LCSW, a licensed psychotherapist based in New York.

Embrace hunger to lose weight

“Stay away from food, and it becomes difficult to manage emotions and make rational decisions,” he says.

But why is hanger so powerful? Why does skipping a meal sometimes turn us into someone we barely recognize?

The Science Behind Hanger

As someone who’s been guilty of turning into a moody monster when my stomach growls, I always assumed it’s because my brain is panicking without food—that it’s going into “flight or fight” mode because it assumes I’m starving.

Turns out it’s a little more complicated than

being hungry

being hungry makes you healthy