Self-Control
How Low Blood Sugar Messes with Your Mood
Being hungry leads to being "hangry," which can push you into conflicts.
Posted December 5, 2022 Reviewed by Devon Frye
Key points
- Low blood sugar is linked to irritability.
- Low blood sugar may also be linked to low self-control.
- Fluctuating blood sugar may be hurting your relationships.
- Get checked for pre-diabetes and Type 2 diabetes.
When you're hungry, your blood sugar drops. You might briefly have less self-control. You might grab sweets. And you might snap at a cashier who seems distracted and slow, scold your child in a harsh tone you regret, or pick a fight with your partner.
In short, hunger can make you "hangry."
Fluctuating blood sugar levels are one of those ongoing problems many of us endure for years. Americans often run out of time to eat, and too often eat meals entirely made of "white carbs" like bagels. About 40 percent of American adults are pre-diabetic, which means they're in danger of developing Type 2 diabetes and may experience early symptoms of problems handling glucose (sugar) in their food. Many people feel hungry shortly after a meal, which may be a symptom of blood-sugar issues.
So how does anger fit in? A blood-sugar drop can trigger a cascade of hormones, including cortisol, the stress hormone, and adrenaline, the fight-or-flight hormone. Your body is trying to raise your blood sugar. You feel stressed and may opt for the “fight” side of fight-or-flight.
Blood Sugar Can Affect Marriage
Being hangry too often can hurt your closest relationships. Think about the way you behave when you haven't had breakfast.
To test whether blood sugar fluctuations caused irritability, researchers at Ohio State University tracked the nightly blood sugar levels of 107 married couples for 21 days. The team also gave participants a way to express anger: voodoo dolls representing their spouses and a personal stack of 51 pins.
In a second test, spouses were put in separate rooms and told that they were competing against each other in a computer game. In fact, each spouse was pre-set to lose 13 of 25 trials in a random assortment. The spouse that won had the opportunity to blast his or her partner with a loud ugly sound. The noise was a mixture of fingernails scratching on a chalkboard, dentist drills, and ambulance sirens.
Winners also got to choose from one to 10 noise levels, up to the volume of a fire alarm, and whether the sound would last along a spectrum from half a second to 5 seconds—a lab measure of aggression that has been used for decades. Spouses also had the option of delivering no punishing noise if they won. When they were on the receiving end, a computer delivered a random blast.
Guess what? Participants with below-normal glucose levels in the previous three weeks chose to punish their spouses with louder sounds, and for longer.
Does sweet food help? Well, people who drank sweet lemonade were less aggressive in a similar computer test of aggression. But that isn't going to help your ongoing problem. People with diabetes, who may have fluctuating sugar levels, emerged as less forgiving in another study.
Other Symptoms of Low Blood Sugar
If hunger and low blood sugar don’t make you angry, they might make you tired, sleepy, or interfere with your concentration and coordination. You might find yourself making mistakes in your work or in risky arenas like driving. People who have diabetes or pancreatic or liver disorders should be especially careful.
What Can You Do?
The remedies all require willpower, grit, or self-control. In Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength, Florida State University psychologist Roy Baumeister and his co-author John Tierney from The New York Times made the point simple: "No glucose, no willpower."
The basic idea remains controversial. It's still not entirely clear that there is a direct relationship between anyone's blood sugar level at any one point in time and that person's capacity for self-control. But it's something for you to think about. Does that seem true for you?
You can build up your self-control with good habits, over time, Baumeister observes. Making your bed every day, for example, could be a good start.
If you know you tend to get irritable, perhaps later in the day after missing meals, don’t let your health damage your relationships.
Here come all the "don'ts." Don’t go on strict diets that make you irritable. Don't skip meals. Don't eat junk food and carbs like white potatoes and cake. Don't skip exercise class.
Do eat meals that contain protein throughout the day; nuts are a good option. Keep them at the office if you find you are missing lunch and getting irritable around co-workers and demanding bosses. Do make sure you drink enough water, since dehydration can make your blood sugar more concentrated. Regular exercise can protect you against developing blood sugar problems and help you avoid being hangry.
Do check your A1c, a three-month average of your blood sugar, to see if you're pre-diabetic or diabetic. Your doctor might recommend medication or encourage you to lose extra pounds and get more exercise.
I'm guessing you've heard all this advice before. Does it seem impossible to do? There's a catch-22 here; you're feeling low on self-control and then are advised to do things that require it. But you can motivate yourself in two ways:
- Ask yourself: How would I feel if I took that noise test and found myself giving my life partner a loud long blast?
- Remind yourself: If the blood-sugar-self-control link is true in my case, everything I do to balance my blood sugar will make it easier for me to do these things I have always wanted to do anyway: lose weight, exercise more, eat healthily, and treat my loved ones like the good person I know I am. You could get a big self-esteem burst, too.
A version of this story appears on Your Care Everywhere.
