THE SCIENCE OF “HANGER”

If you’ve ever been “hangry”—that is, so hungry it makes you angry—you’ll be happy to learn that scientists have begun studying the causes of this unpleasant condition and recommending fixes. To diagnose hanger, researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill asked subjects at varying levels of hunger to write a story about either their emotions or an average day. Next, they were asked to look at circles on a computer that had been rigged to crash. The experimenter would then blame the participant for crashing the program.

It turns out that the people who had written stories about emotions (and were therefore focused on their feelings) felt less stressed or angry when they were unfairly blamed for the computer crash, even if they were hungry.

The takeaway: Being aware of your emotional state reduces the chance that hunger will ruin your mood. Mindfulness training can help with that. Of course, if you’re hangry, eating also helps.