247. The Biology of Hunger: Why We Overeat, Overwork, and Over-Scroll—and How to Stop

Your reactivity isn't a character flaw—it's hardwired into your biology. But that doesn't mean you have to be hijacked by it.

In the last 24 hours, you've probably reached for something—a handful of chips, a glass of wine, your phone. You've flipped through Instagram to Amazon to emails back to Instagram again. You've tried to distract yourself with eating, shopping, scrolling, overworking.

In this transformative episode, Dr. Adrienne Youdim reveals how the same biology that drives public outbursts is also behind our private struggles—and more importantly, how to flip the script on reactivity.

What You'll Learn:

• Why reactivity is biology, not weakness. 
• The hidden hungers driving your behavior. 
• The pause that changes everything 

" When you create space between trigger and reaction, reactivity transforms into resilience. "— Dr. Adrienne Youdim

The Biology Behind Reactivity

Our nervous system was created to scan for threats and get us out of harm's way quickly. But what was once protective has become maladaptive, showing up in how we relate to ourselves and others.

Where Reactivity Shows Up:

Reaching for food, alcohol, or your phone automatically. Lashing out at partners. Overspending, overworking, people-pleasing. The same biology behind public outbursts drives our private struggles.

The Four Types of Hunger:

1. Physical: Your body needs nourishment—food, rest, sleep, movement. Cook real meals, get seven hours of sleep, take a 10-minute walk.
2. Emotional: Stop seeking validation externally. Recognize you are enough, just as you are. Offer yourself the validation you seek.
3. Spiritual: You're trying to control everything. Step back, surrender, recognize you can't do it all. Lean into service or something beyond your tangible life.
4. Relational: Where are you not present? Are you distracted with your children? Hiding behind texts instead of showing up vulnerably?

The Power of the Pause:

When you create space between trigger and reaction, reactivity transforms into resilience. Your hunger is a message—something needs your care. That space is where you live authentically and aligned with your deepest values.

Explore Additional Resources From Dr. Adrienne:

• Buy the Book: Hungry for More (Amazon & Audible)
• 30-Day Journaling Program
• Past episodes of HealthBite

3 Ways that Dr. Adrienne Youdim Can Support You

1. Subscribe to Dr. Adrienne's weekly newsletter https://www.dradrienneyoudim.com/newsletter
2. Connect on Instagram : Follow @dradrienneyoudim for tips and inspiration on well-being and peak performance.
3. Come back next week — Every episode of Health Bite explores the physical, emotional, and spiritual hungers that drive us, and delivers the essential “nutrients” you need to thrive.

Transcript

The Biology of Hunger: Why We Overeat, Overwork, and Over-Scroll—and How to Stop

The Reactivity Cycle We All Know

If you're anything like me, then I bet in the last 24 hours you've probably reached for something. A handful of chips or chocolate, a glass of wine, your phone. You've flipped through Instagram to Amazon to emails back to Instagram again. You've tried to distract yourself with eating, shopping, scrolling, overworking. And yet, that reactivity, that constant grabbing, it only takes us farther away from feeling satisfied.

It's Not Your Fault—It's Biology

It's not your fault. This reactivity is hardwired in our biology, but that doesn't mean we have to be hijacked by it. So if you want to flip the script, keep on listening, because this episode is for you.

Introduction

How many of you are driving yourselves to overeating, overdrinking, overworking, and people-pleasing? As a physician, mother, and type A personality, I know firsthand how we neglect ourselves in the pursuit of doing it all, and how it can leave us hungry for more.

I'm Dr. Adrienne Youdim, physician, author, and expert in medical weight loss and mind-body medicine, and I help high-achieving professionals like you understand the deeper hungers that lead to burnout, reactivity, and self-sabotaging behaviors.

Welcome to HealthBite

and you're listening to Health Bite. Each week we will explore essential nutrients to help you shift from self-neglect to self-respect, vitality and intention so you can achieve the personal and professional success you're looking for without sacrificing your health and well-being.

The Viral Video That Changed My Perspective

So, a few years ago, I saw a video that became a seminal moment for me. It was a viral video of a congressional hearing, one of those clips that quickly makes its way around social media, and I guess presumably something important was being discussed, when all of a sudden, one of the congresswomen, slung a slur at the other one.

From Dialogue to Chaos in Seconds

And then within seconds, the exchange spiraled into insults and shouting and just total chaos. What had begun as a dialogue turned into a full-blown fighting match.

The Question About Reactivity

Now, what stood out to me then, before the total shock of this behavior, was curiosity about reactivity. Like, how does a conversation devolve so quickly into something degrading, honestly disgusting, and totally unproductive?

Reactivity Is Everywhere Now

And I know that From this vantage point, like in recent years, this kind of reactivity has become so common, like everywhere, in our political discourse, in our classrooms, around the dinner table. And honestly, as a parent of college-aged children watching it unfold, not just in the news, but in real time, in the very spaces where we expect our next generation is learning to communicate and to lead, it's been quite disruptive and disturbing to witness.

But We Can Flip the Script

But what I want to say is that Just because we are seeing this reactivity all around us, it doesn't mean that we have to be hijacked by it. We truly can flip the script.

The Truth About Reactivity

It's Not Just Politicians

But first I want to admit something, that this reactivity, it's not reserved for our politicians or the people and protesters we see on the streets.

Reactivity Is Hardwired in Our Biology

The truth is that this reactivity is hardwired in our biology. It is a survival mechanism. Our bodies and our minds, our nervous system, has been created to scan for threats and to get us out of harm's way quickly.

When Protection Becomes Self-Defeating

But what was once protective has now obviously become self-defeating and maladaptive, and it's showing up everywhere, not just in how we talk to each other, but also how we relate to ourselves.

What I See as a Physician

And I see this every day as a physician specializing in weight management. I see how not being able to create some space between that trigger and the reaction It's what is defeating us. Not being able to pause between craving and that habitual response, whatever it may be, whether it's with food, whether it's with drinking, whether it's showing up in our relationships and we're lashing out at our partners, our children, or our coworkers.

Where Reactivity Shows Up

Whether it is in reactive behavior online, in social media, overspending and overshopping, or in ways that are socially accepted like overworking and people pleasing.

The Same Biology Behind Public and Private Struggles

This same biology that drives our public outbursts is also behind our private struggles. And so it's important to pause, to recognize that this is human, that you are only human, to understand that your biology is driving this behavior, but also to learn how to manage it.

The Hunger Beneath Every Reactive Behavior

My Journey as a Weight Loss Specialist

Now, I have spent decades as a weight loss specialist, and long before Ozempic, I was trying to suppress my patients' hunger so they could lose weight.

The Other Hungers in the Room

But it quickly dawned on me that there was another hunger in the room, a spiritual hunger, an emotional hunger, a relational hunger, and these hungers were not meant to be suppressed. They were, as I say, begging to be heard.

What Drives Every Reactive Behavior

And these hungers are actually what I find to be beneath every reactive behavior, whether it is reaching for food or pouring a drink or saying yes when we want to say no. There's a hunger for validation. There's a hunger for connection. There's a hunger for meaning, for control, for purpose in our lives.

What Happens When We Suppress These Hungers

And when we suppress or shame these hungers, they don't disappear. They just find a louder, more destructive way to express themselves, whether it's through these self-sabotaging behaviors or burnout or disconnection or emotional dysregulation.

The Good News

The good news is that when we learn to view these hungers as an intelligent signal from the body, we find an opportunity to recognize and meet that unmet need. And the beauty of that is that the same biology that fueled reactivity can become the foundation for our resilience. the ability to self-regulate and to respond with purpose, clarity, and intention, even under the most high-stakes, high-pressure circumstances.

The Four Types of Hunger

So maybe this makes sense to you, but you need a little more. Maybe you're thinking to yourself, tell me more. Let's divide this up into the ways in which I find our hungers present, or actually, the four areas in which our hunger represents an unmet need. And these areas are physical, emotional, spiritual, and relational. What do I mean by that?

1. Physical Hunger: Concrete Bodily Needs

So, physical hunger is very concrete. Basically, it is a need for some physical nourishment of our body. Maybe that's for food, for nourishing food, but maybe it's for rest. Maybe it's for sleep. Maybe you have denied your body of the necessary movement that it needs And so you find this pent-up energy and your hunger is for movement. Maybe it's for physical touch and self-regulation. A few deep breaths, hands on the heart.

These Needs Are Foundational

These basic concrete bodily needs are foundational. They support our physical health and our vitality. And sometimes that hunger is just for one of these very concrete needs that you have been denying yourself.

Where Are the Gaps?

So think about where there are gaps. Have you been ordering DoorDash or eating processed packaged foods more than you should be. Make an intention to cook for yourself or at least take the time to go for cooked meals at your grocery counter.

Are You Getting Enough Rest?

Is it for rest and relaxation and restoration? Have you not gotten enough downtime? Sleep, pause, opt for some rest. Give yourself the nourishment of seven hours of sleep.

Are You Moving Your Body?

Is it that you haven't moved your body? That you haven't given yourself time for exercise or movement? It doesn't have to be big. Make some time to stretch. Get on the floor right now and stretch as you're listening to this podcast. Go out for a five, 10, 15 minute walk. Meet yourself where you're at and start somewhere.

2. Emotional Hunger: Validation and Belonging

The next is emotional hunger. This is a hunger that seeks validation, belonging, comfort, reassurance, where we often seek from the outside world and need to be seen and to be valued.

Assess Your Outside World

And perhaps you do need to assess your outside world. Perhaps you aren't in the relationships or in the places where you are seen and valued and validated.

But Are You Offering This to Yourself?

But I also want to ask you, are you offering this support to yourself? Oftentimes, we are conditioned to constantly seek this validation, this affection, this soothing and comfort from the outside, whether it's from a person or whether it's from a thing. Comfort through food, comfort through alcohol, comfort through a substance.

The Invitation to Self-Validation

Where can you offer that comfort to yourself? Where do you need to offer yourself affection, belonging, value, and validation? Where do you need to perhaps stop the striving and recognize that you are doing enough, seeing enough, being enough, just as you are? that emotional need for validation and affection and comfort may begin with you.

3. Spiritual Hunger: Connection to Something Larger

The next is a spiritual hunger. This is one that is longing for a connection to something deeper, something larger than ourselves. Maybe it yearns for a greater purpose, meaning, or even surrender.

When You're Trying to Control Everything

Spiritual hunger can be just the fact that you are trying to control. You're trying to do it all on your own. You're trying to make sense of the craziness in the world or chaos in your personal life. Trying to control, trying to do, trying to fix.

The Practice of Surrender

And sometimes we just have to step back throw our hands in the air, have faith, and surrender. This doesn't have to be a religious process. It doesn't have to be surrender to God or even a higher power. This merely needs to be a recognition that you can't do it all. And so you're going to step back and have faith that in the end you will get what you need, that you are exactly where you're meant to be, and that things will work themselves out.

Beyond the Material World

Maybe spiritual hunger for you means that you are spending too much time in the physical world. Maybe you are too worried about materialistic things or successes or achievements or accomplishments and that you yearn for something deeper, more meaning in your life, more purpose. Maybe this means that you need to lean into service, family, I don't know, something that is beyond your concrete, tangible life.

4. Relational Hunger: Connection and Intimacy

And then finally, there's a relational hunger. Relational hunger Desires, attention, affection, intimacy, connection. These are the bonds that remind us that we're not alone. Maybe it's romantic, maybe it's platonic. Relational hunger is wanting more connection and intimacy.

Maybe This Starts With You

And again, maybe this starts with you. Even though it's relational, Maybe you can look at where in your life you are not present. What relationship in your life you haven't fully given your attention to?

Questions to Ask Yourself

Are you distracted when you're with your children or with your partner? Are you not present when you are with friends? Are you not showing up in real time and hiding behind communication via social media or text messages? Where is it that you are not being vulnerable enough to have a true intimate connection with another?

Push Outside Your Comfort Zone

See where your relational hunger takes you. And then look at where you might be able to meet that hunger through a personal push outside of your comfort zone.

When Hungers Are Met vs. Unmet

Because all of these hungers, be it physical, emotional, spiritual, or relational, when they go unmet, we are more likely to be reactive, more quick to anger, to craving, to withdrawal,

The Foundation for Resilience

But when we lean into them intentionally, when we recognize what need they are pointing to, then these hungers can become the foundation for greater presence and attention in our lives, greater resilience in our lives, and far more self-care, self-love, and self-respect.

Your Action Step: The Four-Box Exercise

Option 1: Journal

I want you to take some time, maybe after this podcast, and pull out a journal and write down a square with four boxes inside. And name them. Physical, emotional, spiritual, relational. Can you think of one point or one tip in each box where you can help yourself identify and understand your hunger?

Option 2: Meditation

Or maybe if you don't want to journal, you just want to take a moment. If you're not driving, close your eyes, put your hand on your heart, and ask yourself, which one of these hungers speaks to you, and then take it from there. See where this work takes you.

Additional Resources to Support You

All right, I can talk about this forever, but I have a lot of resources that can support you, so I want you to head over to dradrianudine.com where you can find resources, my book Hungry For More, past episodes of the Health Bite podcast, I have a 30-day journaling program for you. There's so much where you can learn and do more to understand these concepts.

Your Hunger Is a Message

because what your body is saying, what your hunger essentially is not a problem, but a message. It's your body's way of whispering. Something here is important and needs your care. and attention.

Creating Space Between Trigger and Reaction

And when you do that, when you offer that care and attention, when you learn to give yourself a pause between the trigger and the reaction between the craving and the habitual response, you create space.

Where Reactivity Transforms Into Resilience

And that space, my friends, is where reactivity transforms into resilience, allowing us to live in a way that is authentic, intentional, and aligned with our deepest values.

Closing

I hope this podcast resonated. If it did, share it with a friend or someone you love. Go back over to where you listen. Offer us a review and share that love with us. And I look forward to seeing you here again next week on Health Bite.