Food companies, of course, spend billions of dollars trying to increase the number of CS that will make us hungry. Similarly, if we start to pair the act of watching a movie with delicious popcorn and sugary drinks, then the mere thought of a movie may make us hungry even though we have already eaten dinner and would normally not be hungry. We’re conditioned to constantly think about food The Conditioned Stimulus (time of 7:00) causes the Conditioned Response (hunger). Even if we ate a huge meal at dinner the night before, and would not otherwise be hungry in the morning, we may become ‘hungry’ because it is 7:00. If we consistently eat breakfast every single morning at 7:00, lunch at 12:00 and dinner at 6:00pm, then the time of day itself becomes a conditioned stimulus for eating. These conditioned responses can be very powerful and cause great hunger. That is, we can become hungry for many reasons – some of which are natural (smell and sizzle of steak) and others which have become conditioned into us. The applicability of this Psychology 101 lesson to hunger is obvious. By pairing bells and food, the dogs began to anticipate food (salivate) at hearing bells alone without the food. The band ABBA, unfortunately had not been formed yet. Ivan Pavlov, genius that he was, noticed this association and started to work with bells instead and before you know it, he was packing his bags to Stockholm to get his Nobel Prize and taste some of those oh-so-delicious Swedish meatballs. Very soon, the dogs began to salivate at the sight of the lab coats alone (having now been conditioned) even if food was not available. There is nothing intrinsically appetizing about a man in a lab coat (yummy!), but the consistent association between the lab coat and food paired these two in the dog’s mind. In his experiments, lab assistants would go in to feed the dogs and the dogs soon began to associate lab coats (conditioned stimulus -CS) with eating. Dogs will salivate when they see food and expect to eat (unconditioned stimulus – UCS) – that is, this reaction occurs naturally and without teaching. In the 1890s, Ivan Pavlov was studying salivation in dogs. Hunger is also a learned phenomenon, as demonstrated by the classic experiments of Pavlov’s dogs – known in psychology as Pavlovian, or classical conditioning. ![]() That is, we may not be hungry one second, but after smelling a steak and hearing the sizzle, we may become quite ravenous. Hunger is, in fact, a highly suggestible state. But this is exactly what does NOT happen. So we imagine that fasting for a full 24 hours creates hunger sensations 5 times stronger – and that will be intolerable. ![]() So what actually happens with hunger?Īpproximately 4-8 hours after we eat a meal, we start to feel hunger pangs and may become slightly cranky. These clinicians often have zero experience with fasting either personally or with clients, so this is classic ‘lecturing birds how to fly’ behavior. Thus you get pronouncements from clinicians like “Don’t even think about fasting, otherwise you will be so hungry that you will stuff your face full of Krispy Kreme donuts”. The number one, most common misperception of fasting is that it will leave us overwhelmed with hunger and therefore prone to severe overeating. ![]() They often say things like, “I thought I would be consumed by hunger, but now I only eat a third of what I used to, because I am full!” That’s great, because now you are working with your body’s hunger signalling to lose weight instead of constantly fighting it. Does fasting increase your hunger to unimaginable and uncontrollable dimensions? This is often how fasting is portrayed, but is it really true? From a purely practical standpoint, it is not.įrom my personal experience with hundreds of patients, one of the most consistent, yet surprising things reported is the reduction, not an augmentation of hunger.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |