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Hungry for another hour?

Hungry for another hour?

Starving: Suffering or dying from hunger (adjective)

We are all familiar with the concept of starvation as it relates to our satiety. While pursuing a nutrition minor in university, I came across the Minnesota Starvation Experiment, which has profoundly changed my thinking on the way starvation not only plagues the gut but also the mind. The below passage discusses some of the study’s observations.

Food became the sole source of fascination and motivation. Many men began obsessively collecting recipes ("Stayed up until 5 a.m. last night studying cookbooks," wrote one). They found themselves distracted by constant daydreams of food. Some sublimated their cravings by purchasing or stealing food; one man began stealing cups from coffee shops. They guzzled water, seeking fullness. Some took up smoking to stave off hunger and others chewed up to 30 packs of gum a day until the laboratory banned it. Meanwhile, all other elements of life seemed to fade into mere background noise. Over and over again, the researchers reported indifference and boredom when it came to personal development and basic socializing. "Budding romances collapsed" and sexual desire evaporated. At parties, the subjects found conversation both difficult and pointless. They all preferred a solitary trip to the movies, adding that, while they could recognize comedy, they never felt compelled to laugh anymore. "In a store, when shopping, they were easily pushed around by the crowd," the research team reported. "Their usual reaction was resignation." - Source

Starving one element of their lives, a particularly important one, of course, caused other aspects to deteriorate. This study made me think of the other ways we can “starve” in life and if they affected us. Several months later, I came across a podcast episode by NPR’s Hidden Brain, which discussed what I had been thinking about. It started with a story of a person who financially starved and therefore made decisions that were ultimately detrimental to their long term well being.

"When you have scarcity and it creates a scarcity mindset, it leads you to take certain behaviors which, in the short term, help you manage scarcity but in the long term only make matters worse. - Source

Almost every one of my colleagues and peers that I have spoken to express the same sentiment. Time is a major issue in their lives (A story about time starvation is also detailed in the 2nd half of the Hidden Brain episode). You go from mostly controlling your time in a university setting to no longer owning your time as you work a “9-5” shift (although I have seldom heard of anyone who finishes at 5 pm these days, that is another subject unto itself). I began to notice the same patterns of starvation in my own life and that of those around me. This unnatural scarcity began to cripple its victims by deteriorating different elements of their lives whether it be their physical health, mental health, and or personal relationships.

Now that one can identify if they are starved of time, what does this mean? It’s hard to say. The nature of the time-starved lifestyle that has become so heavily associated with pursuing the American dream among other things is likely a result of both intentional and unintentional systemic issues (again, a topic for another time). This lack of understanding of the effects of starvation on our behavior and decisions can sometimes go hand in hand with our natural bias to assume that people act a certain way because of who they are as opposed to what situation they find themselves in. Whether you or someone you know is starving from a lack of food, money, time or something else, it is paramount to understand that it isn’t the individual’s fault that certain aspects of their lives might be suffering in the meantime as they try to regain balance.

Steve Jobs once said, “stay hungry, stay foolish”. However, he failed to underscore what the long term effects of that hunger might be!

Work it, Make it, Do it, Makes us, Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger!

Work it, Make it, Do it, Makes us, Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger!

Passionfruit

Passionfruit