10 Psychological Benefits of Fasting

Fasting has been practiced by millions of people throughout the world, and it has even been used as part of religious practices throughout history. Many health benefits have been associated with fasting, but what about psychological benefits? How does fasting affect the brain? Read on to find out the 10 psychological benefits of fasting.

1) Emotional Stability

In addition to helping control hunger, fasting can also increase our ability to cope with stress. Fasting is about training yourself not to rely on food for comfort, but it's a skill that you can use in everyday life, says Abdullah. Once you've finished your fast and feel like you've conquered hunger, use that feeling as an opportunity to practice controlling your urges. People who regularly skip meals tend to have higher levels of cortisol (the stress hormone) than people who don't; fasting helps regulate cortisol levels and makes us more resilient when faced with stressful situations. In today's society where food is readily available, skipping meals is one way we can work against being overly dependent on convenience, adds Dr. Guarisco.

2) Increased Willpower

You may think you’re able to resist sweets and junk food right now, but intermittent fasting can help train your brain to better regulate what you eat. In a 2015 study published in Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, rats who fasted for 12 hours daily for two weeks ate more healthy foods when presented with them than rats who didn’t fast. Skipping meals helps your body kick its unhealthy food habits and develop new ones. However, it doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing approach; studies suggest that when dieters cut down on calories two days per week while increasing their intake on other days, they lost a significant amount of weight over time without feeling deprived.

3) Improved Attention Span

While fasting is not going to improve your brainpower in every way (such as long-term memory, etc.), it can help to improve your ability to focus on specific activities. When you’re fasting, you are pretty much eating one meal a day or less, which means that you will be consuming fewer calories than normal. Eating too many calories can lead to increased blood sugar levels and insulin spikes. This can leave you feeling mentally foggy at best and can cause serious damage to organs such as your liver at worst. By regulating how many calories you eat each day and how often you consume those calories, it can help with your attention span as well as clarity.

4) Better Sleep Quality

Going a number of hours without eating, including going to bed on an empty stomach, can help improve sleep quality and duration. In one study, researchers found that after 16 hours without food—the time period when most people start feeling hungry again—participants slept significantly longer than when they ate meals during that time period. Researchers note that fasting for 14-16 hours between dinner and breakfast (without work or exercise) was ideal for maintaining a healthy body weight because it allowed enough time to be awake to burn calories but not so long as to encourage participants to eat before falling asleep at night. The study also noted that eating dinner earlier in the evening was associated with better quality sleep, due in part to participants’ bodies naturally feeling more tired as bedtime approached.

5) Higher Energy Levels

During a fast, you burn through your glycogen stores (the energy reserves in your liver and muscles). When those stores are gone, you start to burn fat. There's no question that losing weight takes work—but it doesn't always have to be exercise-related. In fact, simple caloric restriction can allow you to burn more calories while resting! If you're finding it difficult to lose weight but want better energy levels, try intermittent fasting. It's not just a diet fad; research shows that regularly skipping meals can boost both mental and physical energy. The next time you sit down for a meal, consider eating only half—or even a quarter—of what you usually eat before jumping back into your regular routine with full gusto.

6) Improved Moods

When you don’t eat for a period of time, ghrelin levels drop, which increases your feelings of fullness and reduces hunger. This means that you won’t experience any fluctuations in your energy levels throughout your day, so you can avoid energy spikes and crashes that might make you feel out-of-sorts. The changes in your hormones also affect mood as a whole; studies have shown fasting to have an antidepressant effect on humans when compared to their non-fasting counterparts. Since the major depressive disorder is one of today’s most commonly experienced mental health conditions worldwide, improving moods through simple dietary methods like fasting should be something we all look into.

7) Reduces Irritability and Depression

A 1995 study by researchers from Duke University Medical Center found that mice with symptoms of depression became less depressed after just a couple of days without food. The scientists speculated that ketones, which are produced when we’re starving and are used as an energy source in our brains, might be responsible for regulating mood. A 2017 study from Johns Hopkins University also showed that fasting is associated with changes to brain activity in areas that regulate emotion. Researchers think it’s possible that fasting helps people who are especially irritable or depressed because it quickly reduces inflammation throughout the body and impacts gene expression in specific ways that alter brain chemistry—as opposed to a simple change in calorie consumption (though eating fewer calories is still important for weight loss).

8) Heightened Creativity

Resisting a piece of chocolate cake, saying no to dessert after dinner, or resisting snacking when you’re not hungry all count as forms of self-control. People who fast frequently can better control their impulses and say no to instant gratification for long-term goals because they have already practiced it during their fasting time. Intermittent fasting can also benefit self-control by reducing impulsive behavior and increasing patience. Not only will waiting 20 minutes after dinner allow you to eat less overall—if you choose healthier foods—but it will also give your brain time to reduce impulsive behaviors like eating high-calorie foods. If your favorite foods are rich in fat and sugar, perhaps now is a good time to exercise some willpower!

9) Enhanced Self-Discipline

It might sound counterintuitive, but some research suggests that intermittent fasting can help strengthen self-control by activating alternative brain networks and thereby make people less likely to eat for pleasure. Intermittent fasting has also been shown to reduce brain inflammation in rats. (3) The former study found that alternating between periods of eating and abstaining from food helped participants better regulate their emotions, slow down their eating, avoid overeating as a result of stress and overindulging, control snacking behavior, and resist temptation. The latter study found that calorie restriction reduced mental fatigue while increasing reaction time – both are indications of increased self-control!

10) Stronger Self-Control

When you go without food for a prolonged period, it sends your body into ketosis, which helps develop self-control. Researchers from Utah State University gave dozens of participants 24 hours to fast and then made them do a taste test with tempting foods. Those who had gone without food resisted eating more than those who hadn’t gone without food in 24 hours. So even if you only choose to do a 24-hour fast once or twice per month, you can still experience some of these benefits! Additionally, fasting improves cognitive control over unhealthy temptations because it teaches your brain that you don’t need to act on every impulse right away—making it easier to make smarter choices in daily life.