feeling of satiety

January 11, 2003

Dear all brave souls:

PHYSICAL HUNGER

I've never had what some call an eating disorder, but I have treated others

who have various eating " misunderstandings " over the years now. Here is just

my two cent's worth of observation: For many people, physical hunger is a

feeling of the stomach cramping, aching, having physical pangs or a sense

within the body of feeling weak, sometimes feeling suddenly tired, running

out of energy, unable to concentrate well, and so on, as stores in the body

need replenishing.... For some it is a feeling of being cross or irritable or

ready to spring.

HEAD HUNGER TYPE ONE

For many people, head hunger is a desire to lower an emotional threshold that

feels uncomfortable or painful, thereby causing more anxiety, more sense of

misapprehension, more sense of 'lostness. " Such as, feeling " too " anxious,

" too " fearful, " too " excited, " too " bored, " too " hurried, " too " angry, " too "

happy, " too " sad, " too scared, " " too " turned off, " too resistant to doing

something one does not want to do or is afraid to do, " etc. Taking in foods

of certain kinds and in certain amounts is a most immediate and perhaps even

primitive way, that is INHERENT in many persons. People are brilliant

actually. They intuitively realize that foods of certain kinds will lower

their anxiety thresholds to a reasonable roar....and often allow them to say

the no they want to say, or to go ahead and do what needs to be done, (and as

often enough, to go back to being the compliant boy or girl they have been

taught to be instead of speaking up for themselves), or whatever else is on

their minds.

Though they may feel poorly afterwards perhaps from the side effects of what

they have eaten, or the amounts they have eaten, and may feel crummy in one

part of their mind for eating something that might cause them to gain weight,

or maintain a high weight-- in another part of the brain, the eating of the

food has in fact helped to lower the excess load of anxiety EFFECTIVELY.

Though it may not work for weight or self-esteem, the food mediation does

work for lessening that " over-revving of the interior engine. " We have all

had that experience where the inside seems to be going much faster than the

outside is capable of keeping up with. people often use a metaphor like that

to describe the feeling of head hunger/ anxiety/ panic.

HEAD HUNGER TYPE TWO

appears to deal with the same issues, but the response to overload is to feel

down, blue or depressed instead of anxious, and to eat the kinds of

foodstuffs that mediate this overwhelm to an appreciable degree. AGAIN, the

feeling afterward is one of temporarily and successfully having avoided a

catastrophe, but the fall out to self esteem and somewhat sick feeling in the

physical body from eating food that often causes glucose and perhaps

adrenaline floooding, often overshadow this very EFFECTIVE but primitive

scheme to balance one's emotional, sensate, and kinesthetic sensibilities.

HEAD HUNGER TYPE THREE

Is a combination of both anxiety and feeling melancholy, and needs to be

differentiated carefully to see what is really going on and to take action

accordingly.

THE GOOD NEWS

is that many persons who have used these brilliant intuitive means (foods)

(and they are brilliant, make no mistake) to self-regulate their emotional

sensitivities, can learn to put conscious differentiation and thoughtfulness

in the place of food, and to regulate and balance their thresholds of

tolerance by acting and speaking and doing in certain (often new) ways. These

new ways, consciously practiced with consistency, will have the same or

similar effect of calming and balancing the " sense of self " that food

formerly did.

just my two cent's worth

love,

ceep G-MOM shrink

In a message dated 1/11/03 9:14:20 PM, Graduate-OSSG writes:

<< Could you please explain how you really tell if it is head hunger of

physical hunger you are feeling. >>

January 11, 2003

Wow Ceep - Another wonderful Explanation. Again, can I repost to the oldies.

As Far as giving credit, Please e-mail again what it should say.

Fay Bayuk

January 12, 2003

feeling of satiety

Thanks ceep, that was an excellent description of hunger types.

Barbara