People Who Skip Breakfast Most Mornings Usually Share These 4 Traits, According To Psychology
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day for a reason.
tabitha turner | Unsplash We've spent our whole lives hearing that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It sets you up for the day ahead. Unfortunately, some people choose to skip that first meal of the day, whether it's for a little extra sleep or because they can't be bothered, but this bad habit can drastically impact your mood and productivity.
In fact, according to a study published in Frontiers in Psychiatry, researchers found that people who typically skipped breakfast exhibited certain traits that had a negative impact on their mental health. Since breakfast can help improve a person's concentration and overall performance, it's important that people make the time to sit down and eat.
People who don't eat breakfast most mornings usually share these traits:
1. They lack impulse control
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People who skip breakfast don't always have the best self-control. Hunger can make it harder to regulate emotions and impulses, leading to snap decisions over things that are pretty small and inconsequential. A 2016 study actually found that when your body needs food, your stomach starts producing the hormone ghrelin, which makes you feel hungry. Researchers discovered that the "hunger hormone," as ghrelin has been dubbed, can cause a lack of impulse control if it's not satiated.
Think of that feeling when you are so hungry you crave only the unhealthiest foods. That's ghrelin making you choose a fast food meal over the egg on toast you should have had before you left the house. If you ignore even the fast food breakfast and power through, that lack of impulse control will bleed into other aspects of your day because your brain is only focused on one thing. That thing is appeasing your hunger.
2. They exhibit symptoms of depression and anxiety
Research from the study published in Frontiers in Psychiatry found that people who skip breakfast tend to exhibit increased symptoms of depression and anxiety compared to their peers who regularly eat in the mornings.
"Breakfast skipping is associated with elevated depressive symptoms in young people, with impaired attentional control being an important mechanism in this relationship. Encouraging young people to build regular breakfast habits may be incorporated as part of future lifestyle interventions for mental disorders and be further emphasized in public health policies," the study authors explained.
3. They struggle with productivity
Hunger is draining. Without the fuel from a good meal, it's just hard to sit down and concentrate, remember important things that need to get done, and process information. Your mind just can't focus on anything other than the rumble of your stomach. When you can't focus, productivity suffers.
A 2017 academic paper entitled "Food for thought: how nutrition impacts cognition and emotion," noted that regardless of weight, individuals who deprive themselves as a means of calorie cutting for weight loss struggle to function properly. This is specifically related to a lack of required nutrition. That means, if you eat jelly beans to satiate your hunger, that won't give your brain the sustenance required to function properly either. So, what you eat in addition to eating before you're too hungry to think straight is important.
This is connected to your emotional well-being as well because consistently skipping breakfast means you're just becoming more and more stressed out because you can't get anything done. That spikes those depressive symptoms. It's a dangerous loop you can put yourself in.
4. They tend to withdraw from social interaction
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Skipping breakfast doesn't just affect your own mood and focus. It can also affect how you show up for others. Basically, you lack the energy to engage socially, and that can increase those feelings of depression and anxiety. On top of that, a 2018 study examining the effects of "hanger" found that letting your body get to the point of feeling angry because you're too hungry to do anything but focus on your growling stomach results in a negative view of pretty much everything going on around you. That will cause you to find fault with people whom you might not otherwise be bothered by.
Lead researcher Kristen Lindquist, a psychologist and neuroscientist at the University of North Carolina, explained, "The feelings that are generated in your body when hungry turn up the dial on what you are experiencing in that context." She added, "So maybe you normally wouldn't be irritated at all by a slight from your co-worker, but when you're hungry, you think it was a horrible thing to say."
As a result of this easy irritation, hanger might cause you to isolate because it feels easier than interacting and mingling with others. But as we all know, isolation is never a good thing. Humans need community to thrive, and skipping breakfast is not a good reason to sacrifice your mental and emotional well-being. Why not do something good for yourself before rushing out to work in the morning? Regardless of what boomers say, avocado toast might be exactly what you need to succeed.
Nia Tipton is a staff writer with a bachelor's degree in creative writing and journalism who covers news and lifestyle topics that focus on psychology, relationships, and the human experience.
