Why is it that it takes few seconds for our body to decide that it’s had enough water not to be thirsty, but several minutes to recognize that no more food is needed cuz it’s not hungry?
In: Biology
For both hunger and thirst we have multiple signals that tell us whether we have ‘had enough’. For example, stomach dilation, salt or glucose levels in the bloodstream, etc. Unfortunately all of these have at least several minutes’ lag (for hydration) or even a hour’s lag (for glucose levels) and we often feel that we’ve had enough water or food before this happens. Psychologists believe therefore that the real reason we feel we’ve had enough is simply habit. We know roughly how much water to drink from previous experience, and how much food to eat. The reason you feel you’ve had enough water earlier that for food is simply that you have different drinking habits to eating habits. If you retrain yourself to stop eating after less food, you will feel full from food earlier.
Latest Answers