The Food Thing Again

So I've got more to say on this issue of being hungry, since I left it so unresolved before. In my post on 11/14/2007, entitled "Food!", I mentioned that the research evidence points to being hungry helps learning. Something I can't believe I didn't think about because it's brought up so often in Honors is Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. So Abraham Maslow created this pyramid structure of needs. You must fulfill lower order needs before higher order. Here's the structure:

1. Physiological -- you need food, water, oxygen, etc. in order to survive. These needs must be filled before any other needs can be addressed.

2. Safety and Physical Security -- shelter from weather, protection from predators, etc. Clearly if your house was inaccessible and your oxygen supply was inaccessible, you would try to regain your air supply before your house. So you need to fulfill 1 before 2.

3. Love and Belongingness -- companionship, affection, acceptance from others, etc. Now we have needs that are satisfied through interaction with other people. Clearly the first two needs are more important to survival than this third one, but Maslow claims that you must fill those needs before you are able to competently fill this one.

4. Esteem -- need for a sense of mastery and power and a sense of appreciation from others. Let me clarify why this one is different than 3. Esteem needs are evaluative (and self-evaluative). Appreciation requires evaluation while acceptance or affection do not. Thus appreciation is more elaborate than acceptance and is a higher order need.

5. Self-Actualization -- this is the tendency to become whatever you're capable of becoming, or to extend yourself to the limits of your capabilities. See research by Carl Rogers to gain a better understanding of this.

So Maslow's main assumption was that the needs that are lower on the scale are more demanding, meaning that if we are hungry, we cannot have a strong need for achievement (something less demanding that food).

Food!

Back to my usual theme of ways to enhance learning. One thing to consider is food. Eating healthily is definitely beneficial in many more ways than learning. There are things like: Vitamin B (specifically Niacin, I believe) is linked to increased mental performance. That's actually not what I want to get in to right now. The thing is, I've got a pretty busy schedule, and sometimes I don't eat very well during the day -- such as lunch.

The research evidence shows that being hungry helps learning. This is very counter-intuitive to me since I do horribly when I'm hungry. I can't think of anything else until I've eaten. Still, there is a reason why being hungry helps and the data supports it. The reason is that when you become hungry (as a primitive animal) your awareness heightens. You are in more need of food, and you need to do a better job getting it otherwise you die. So you take in more and remember it better for the future. This also seems to indicate that right after a big meal you will learn less and be more lethargic. I can easily agree with this one, not personally, but from watching people in class right after lunch time. Personally, I do much better on a full stomach. Perhaps being hungry helps when taken to a small extent, but hurts when overdone. I'm sure that's true of most things.

I encourage anyone who reads this to post a comment on what their personal experience with this has been.