Hangry Isn’t Just About Food

You know that Snickers commercial. Someone’s a total mess, snapping at everybody, acting like a stranger, and then they eat a candy bar and turn back into themselves. You’re not you when you’re hungry. That’s the whole joke.

Except it’s not really a joke. It’s true. And it’s not just about food.

I think our bodies crave a lot more than we give them credit for, and most of the time we’re too busy overriding the request to even notice it happened.

Sometimes my body craves the beach. I can feel it building, this pull toward salt water and sand that has nothing to do with logic and everything to do with something in me that needs it. Sometimes it’s simpler than that. It’s a shower. It’s water on my skin and five minutes where nobody needs anything from me. And when I actually listen and go take that shower, I come out a completely different person. Lighter. Calmer. More like myself.

Here’s the thing I had to learn the hard way. When I don’t listen, I don’t just miss out on a nice shower. I turn into someone else. Someone irritated for no clear reason. Someone snapping at people who didn’t do anything wrong. My body asked for something small and specific, I said not right now, and it found another way to get my attention. Usually a worse way.

For years I would say my back hurts, I need a massage, my back hurts, I need a massage, on repeat, like a broken record I never actually did anything about. I told everyone and I told myself. I just never told my calendar or my bank account that this was actually happening. I didn’t feel like I had the time. I didn’t feel like I deserved to spend the money on myself. So my back kept hurting and I kept talking about it and nothing changed until my body basically forced the issue because I’d ignored it long enough.

That’s the pattern, isn’t it. We know exactly what we need. We even say it out loud sometimes. However, we don’t do anything about it.

I did the same thing with breaks. I would say I need a break, I need to reset, I need some quiet, over and over, like saying it enough times might magically produce the break itself but I never called a sitter. I never asked anyone for help. I just complained about not having help I never actually asked for. Then, right on schedule, I’d get short with my kids over absolutely nothing, because I was running on empty and refusing to admit it needed fixing before it turned into that.

Talking about the need isn’t the same as meeting it. I had to learn that one slowly and a little painfully.

Here’s what I’ve come to believe. When your body is craving something, whether that’s rest or movement or quiet or a massage or an actual meal before noon, that craving is information. It’s not weakness and it’s not you being dramatic. It’s your body doing exactly what it’s supposed to do, which is tell you what it needs before things get worse.

And when you actually answer that craving, that’s self care. Real self care, not the spa day Instagram version. Sometimes self care looks like a hike. Sometimes it’s fifteen minutes with your feet in the grass. Sometimes it’s a guy going to play golf because that’s genuinely what resets him, not because he’s avoiding his family every single weekend, but because in that specific moment his body and his mind are asking for that particular thing and he’s smart enough to listen.

I’m not saying give in to every impulse the second it shows up and call it enlightenment. That’s not what this is. I’m saying pay attention to the actual signal instead of talking over it for six months and wondering why you feel like a stranger in your own life.

Your body already knows what it needs most of the time. The real work isn’t figuring that part out. The real work is actually doing something about it instead of just mentioning it out loud and hoping the universe handles the logistics.

Go take the shower. Book the massage. Call the sitter. Play the round of golf. Go stand at the ocean if that’s what’s calling you.

You’re not being difficult. You’re not asking for too much. You’re just finally answering something you’ve been saying for a really long time.

Heather (Mare) is the founder of Low Tide Lighthouse and Saraphina Mare LLC. She writes about healing, identity, foster care, and the long work of becoming yourself. Find her at saraphinamare.com