I like my food and thankfully, with the advice and guidance of the brilliant Catherine Burns (The Royal Gazette Food For Thought columnist), I eat well. But I am yet to master the skill of being an ‘organised eater’, which comes back to bite me all too often.

Case in point: school sports day.

I’d had a good breakfast but that now seemed a long time ago. Previous years had seen tables laden with worthy snacks for cheering parents.

This time, ‘refreshments’ consisted of a vat of thick coffee and little else. Hot, bothered, no food in my system for six hours, caffeine coursing through my veins and no end in sight, I was getting a little testy. Alright, that wins a blue ribbon for understatement…I was beyond it.

I motioned to my son that I had to leave but he started to whine. His lovely teacher explained that the students were expected to stay for the normal school day but my brain was focused on just one thing.

I explained I had to get out of there and, unable to cope with the kiddie guilt-trip, I said I was taking my boy and we high-tailed it to the nearest café.

As lunch settled into my belly it was like calm washing over me, a repressive fog lifting. I looked across the table at my grinning child and realised just how I’d behaved.

Oops! Crazy lady on the loose! Such are the effects of being ‘hangry’.

Yes, hangry – it’s a thing. It’s that unreasonable anger that often accompanies being hungry. Other symptoms include trouble concentrating, less tolerance or patience than usual, anxiety, cloudy thinking and poor decision-making.

Several studies have tested the effects of hunger. According to one, shopping while hungry can lead us to buy more… not just groceries but non-food items, too. An empty belly might explain my frequent shopper’s remorse!

People have been shown to be more aggressive when they have low blood-sugar levels. A recent study showed levels of annoyance dropped by 40 per cent after eating. Women, in particular, improved their decision-making skills by 30 per cent after a balanced snack.

Now I know many folks who seem to thrive on (what seems to me) very little food, but if you relate to some of my crazy, then maybe part of the answer is, you need a good meal.

The key I find, as with most things, is being organised and prepared. If I’d had a snack in my bag I could have avoided the sheepish e-mail I had to write later that day apologising for my irrationality.

Being aware of how hunger can affect us helps us avoid its negative impacts — before that meeting with your boss; accepting that marriage proposal before dinner.

Of course, choosing the right kinds of snacks and food when we do eat will further make a difference in balancing our blood sugars and promoting mental clarity.

See Catherine for that -—www.natural.bm. Together we can win the Hanger Games!

• Julia Pitt is a trained success coach and certified NLP practitioner on the team at Benedict Associates. For further information contact Julia on 705-7488, www.juliapittcoaching.com.