Wednesday 30 December 2015

5 reasons why we are often hungry.


1. Alcohol
Your glass of wine or beer with dinner could be contributing to your hunger. Research has shown that drinking alcohol can increase the presence of the hormone, ghrelin, which triggers a feeling of hunger.
 In addition to eating more while drinking, the increased feeling of hunger can carry on to subsequent meals.

2. Sleep Deprivation
In today’s fast paced society, it is common for people to get as few as four or five hours of sleep a night. When your body hasn’t had adequate rest, it becomes more difficult to produce the hormone leptin, which is responsible for allowing your body to feel full. Sleep deprivation also leads to an increase in the production of the hunger inducing hormone ghrelin. Furthermore, sleep deprivation stimulates the part of the brain that is responsible for recognizing food as a source of pleasure.

3. Stress
Many people turn to food as a coping mechanism, eating as a way to deal with stressful or negative emotions. This can lead to an unhealthy eating cycle. Stress eating does not reduce negative emotions or anxieties, but rather triggers the need to eat more and leads to weight gain and further anxieties.

4. Dehydration
Often, what people perceive as hunger is actually thirst. This is especially true when a person is chronically dehydrated. In fact, many symptoms that people think of as associated with hunger; crankiness, low energy, feeling week, can be attributed to dehydration.

5. Eating Processed Foods
Processed foods are often high in calories and low in nutrients. Because of this your body continues to crave sustenance. Additionally, processed food often contains additives and chemicals that can be addictive. Some research has shown that high fructose corn syrup, which is a main ingredient in many processed foods, can slow down production of the hormone leptin, which tells the brain that you are full.
Source: click here

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