Hunger is defined as a strong desire to eat; it is also useful in identification of the present state of mind of a person when they get an immediate craving of eating. Reaching for food every time doesn’t always denote that a person is hungry, as hunger is governed by our emotions, thoughts, and sensations.
Mindful eating is also a way of eating based upon the sensual awareness of the food.
Based upon mindful eating, there are various types of hunger; all are related to different body organs like eyes, heart, nose, mouth, cells and stomach. It is always being said that once a person gets aware of these different types of hunger, one can easily make a healthy choice of when to eat and what to eat.
Following are the types of hunger:
1. Mind hunger
Mind hunger is often associated with thoughts and it often comes in the form of “should or shouldn’t”. It also involves thoughts like “I should drink more water”. The worst thing about mind hunger is thoughts and preferences of foods changes. Our mind often changes by getting influenced by nutritional tips or some diet tips.
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2. Heart hunger
Heart hunger is often defined as emotional eating. It can be positive or negative both. Manier times, you eat in reply to negative emotions thinking that the food will fill the space in your heart and avoid the painful feelings for the time being. Another example is eating food when you want to experience again the feelings of connection with a memory shared between yourself and a particular person.
3. Eye hunger
Eye hunger gets activated when we see some delicious foods. In other words, it means when you cannot resist yourself from eating food after having a look at it. This is a strategy played by food supermarkets and restaurants to make people grab a food bite which they are offering. When we often look at some tempting foods, our eyes convince the mind first and then pass the signal to the body and the stomach to override the feeling of fullness. This further makes us eat more than required to satisfy our eye hunger.
4. Nose hunger
The nose helps us in a way when we smell food and get tempted, it means we are experiencing a nose hunger. The smell of favourite dishes like brewing coffee and baking often persuade a person to eat food, irrespective of the fact whether they are hungry or not. Nose hunger is often tangled with mouth hunger.
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5. Mouth hunger
Mouth hunger is defined as a desire to taste wide varieties of flavours of foods. Mouth hunger is very similar to mind hunger, yet it is difficult to satisfy as it gets bored out easily. This strategy is often being used by snack-food manufacturers as they make foods which are little crunchy and flavourful to make people eat more food.