Understanding Cinnamon Cravings: Causes and Management
Nutrition & FitnessDiet & Nutrition

What Does It Mean When You Crave Cinnamon?

What Does It Mean When You Crave Cinnamon?
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Updated on August 7, 2025
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A cinnamon craving hasn’t been connected with a definite cause.

If you crave cinnamon, it may just reflect your desire for a favorite food, especially if you haven’t eaten it for a while. Or it could simply mean you’re craving something sweet.

Desire for Sweets

Cinnamon isn’t exactly sweet, but the spice is often associated with sweet-tasting baked goods.

Eating sugar activates brain chemicals, like serotonin, that make us feel good. As a result, you can crave sweets, says Cleveland Clinic. This triggers cravings and can turn into a cycle where the more you eat, the more you want.

In addition, sugar stimulates the neurotransmitter dopamine. Dopamine affects how we experience pleasure. Its role in sugar addiction is similar to that of other types of addictions, according to UCLA Health.

Monitor Your Stress and Sleep

Chronic stress is one of the most significant factors affecting your hunger hormones.

Stress releases the hormone cortisol, which increases your appetite as part of your body’s fight-or-flight response. Your brain thinks it needs fuel to fight off stress, which increases cravings, especially for high-fat, high-calorie foods, according to Kaiser Permanente. No wonder you’re craving cinnamon rolls!

On top of that, lack of sleep can cause hormone fluctuations that can lead to cravings for sweet, starchy, high-fat, and salty foods, says the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. If your stress is causing you to sleep less, that could compound your cravings.

Control the Craving

If you wait 15 minutes before giving in to a craving, it may just go away. During that time, distract yourself with an activity or drink water. Our brains often mistake thirst for hunger, says Kaiser Permanente.

It’s hard to control sugar cravings after blood sugar drops, but you can manage them by eating small meals and healthy snacks at regular intervals throughout the day, according to UCLA Health. The steady influx of food keeps your blood sugar controlled and reduces cravings.

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Sylvia E. Klinger, DBA, MS, RD, CPT

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Sylvia Klinger, DBA, MS, RD, CPT, is an internationally recognized nutrition expert who is relentlessly passionate about helping people fall in love with creating and enjoying delicious, safe, and nutritious foods.

As a food and nutrition communications professional, Dr. Klinger is a global nutrition professor, award-winning author, and the founder of Hispanic Food Communications.

She is on the board at Global Rise to build a formal community nutrition program as part of an ambitious initiative to create a regenerative food system in Uganda in partnership with tribal and community leaders. This program included an extensive training session on food safety and sanitation that displayed cultural sensitivity and various communication strategies and incentives to spread these important food safety and sanitation messages into the communities.

Her Hispanic background fuels her passion for nutrition, leading her to empower and encourage those in her community through the foods they enjoy in their kitchens. At the same time, she understands everyone’s needs are different and seeks to individualize nutrition and exercise to best fit each person and their journey to a happy, safe, and healthy life.

Her latest book, The Little Book of Simple Eating, was published in 2018 in both Spanish and English.

In her spare time, Klinger explores food and culture all over the world with her family, realizing the power a healthy lifestyle has to keep people together.

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Sandi Busch

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Sandi Busch received a Bachelor of Arts in psychology, then pursued training in nursing and nutrition. She taught families to plan and prepare special diets, worked as a therapeutic support specialist, and now writes about her favorite topics – nutrition, food, families and parenting – for hospitals and trade magazines.

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