Why Cravings Feel Like Life or Death (But Really, They're Just Your Brain in a Tutu Having a Meltdown)

Have you ever had a craving so intense it felt like a cosmic emergency? Like your entire sense of purpose and dignity hinged on the immediate procurement of a Tim Tam or a tub of Ben & Jerry’s?

One moment you’re watching telly, relatively composed, living your best beige domestic life—and the next?
BAM.
You’re halfway to the freezer like a woman possessed.
MUST. HAVE. ICE CREAM.
Right now. Not in ten minutes. Not after a deep breath and a herbal tea. NOW, Sandra.

Your brain, once a civilised organ of logic and ambition, has flipped its desk, lit a flare and started chanting “ice cream or death!” like it’s auditioning for a Shakespearean tragedy in aisle five of Woolies.

Now, I once made the mistake of asking a male friend—whose relationship with food is roughly as emotional as a house brick—if he ever felt this way.
He blinked slowly and said, “Just don’t eat it?”
Oh! OH! Thank you, Wise Oracle of Obviousville!
What a revolutionary idea. Just don’t eat it.
I’ll simply alert the Department of Craving Control and cancel the sirens.
(Insert eye roll so hard my retinas nearly detached.)

See, here’s the thing. A craving isn’t a thought. It’s a full-body symphony of sensory chaos. It’s not “Hmmm, I feel like chocolate.” It’s:
“My teeth are vibrating, my fingertips are tingling, I can hear the Mars Bar calling my name from behind the Vegemite and if I don’t get sugar soon, I will definitely die and come back as a vengeful snack ghost.”

And looking back, I realise—this wasn’t about willpower.
Willpower? Please.
Willpower is great for choosing salad over chips when you’re mildly peckish.
This?
This was biological mutiny.
A system override.
It was my brain slamming its fist on the control panel screaming, “We need dopamine, damn it! Deploy the Dairy Milk!”

Because your brain—darling, sweet, overprotective organ that it is—was built for survival. Back in the loincloth days, it had one job: keep you alive. And when food was scarce, the brain learned to throw a confetti cannon of dopamine at anything remotely edible.
Fast-forward to now and you’ve got a brain that still thinks you’re foraging on the savannah, while you’re actually standing in front of a fridge full of neon-packaged edible engineering marvels.

Welcome to The Great Craving Hijack.

This is the bit where your prehistoric wiring meets modern food science and your frontal lobe gets shoved into the backseat while your limbic system takes the wheel screaming, “YOLO!”

Because cravings aren’t logical—they’re neurological.
They’re driven by dopamine, that sneaky little molecule that whispers, “That'll feel good… just one bite… maybe seven.”
Dopamine was once the reason we crawled out of caves to find berries.
Now it’s why we crawl across the couch for half a stale biscuit we found under a cushion.

And here’s where it gets juicy-slash-sinister:
Food manufacturers know this.
They’ve built entire empires on manipulating your brain’s reward system.
They engineer ultra-processed foods—that’s UPFs if you want to sound like a scientist—which are so perfectly dialled in to the “bliss point” (that magical, Frankenstein mix of sugar, fat and salt) that your brain basically short-circuits on contact.

It’s not a snack. It’s a neurological landslide.
They don’t just want you to enjoy it.
They want you to need it.
And even when you don’t particularly like it anymore, your brain’s like, “Shhh. We’re still chasing the high from that first bite. Carry on.”

This, my friends, is the kicker:
Wanting and liking are not the same thing.
Ever found yourself halfway through a block of chocolate, thinking, “This isn’t even that good”?
But you keep eating it anyway?
That’s dopamine dragging you by the ponytail into another round of “Eat Now, Question Everything Later.”

So what the hell do we do with this knowledge?

Step one: Stop blaming yourself.
You’re not broken. You’re not weak.
You’re just a highly-evolved organism with a dopamine system that’s been hijacked by a team of food chemists in lab coats who probably have shares in snack companies.

Step two: Retrain the brain.
This isn’t boot camp. You’re not going to win this with brute force and inspirational fridge magnets.
But if you reduce your intake of UPFs—even for two weeks—you can actually reset your dopamine sensitivity.
And here’s a wild idea: eat actual food. You know, the kind your grandparents wouldn’t need a chemistry degree to identify.
Think of it as a dopamine detox, not a joyless punishment.
(Although yes, your brain will initially throw a toddler tantrum in aisle three.)

Step three: Mindfulness, baby.
When a craving hits, don’t judge it—study it.
Pause. Get curious.
Ask yourself:
Do I want this?
Or does my brain just want to stop feeling bored/tired/stressed/unloved/bloated and betrayed by society?
You’re not trying to wrestle your craving into submission—you’re just shining a big, bright light on it and saying,
“Okay, brain. I see what you’re doing there. You cheeky bastard.”

Because cravings feel urgent.
They feel dramatic.
They feel like death.
But they’re just… feelings.
Electrochemical blips with really good PR.

And once you understand what’s actually happening—once you realise your brain is just doing its overzealous, slightly outdated best—you get to decide who’s really in charge.

Spoiler alert: It’s you.
Not the craving. Not the biscuit.
Not the brain in a tutu throwing a hissy fit because it can’t have another marshmallow.

Just you.
Breathing.
Not broken.
And brilliantly capable of walking past the fridge, middle finger metaphorically raised, with your dignity and your dopamine firmly intact.

Encore optional. Ice cream no longer mandatory.

p.s. Urge Surfing is the best, scientifically backed way to allow rather than answer an urge.