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How Stress Affect Blood Sugar

5 mins read

Stress affects every part of your body. It releases hormones, increases muscle tension, and interferes with heart health. n most cases when you're diagnosed with diabetes, you'll have a lifelong illness to manage. It takes consistent effort to track your blood sugar levels, and this can add stress to your day. Be aware of how stress is affecting your diabetes.



Stress and diabetes

Diabetes management is a lifelong process. This can add stress to your daily life. Stress can be a major barrier to effective glucose control. Stress hormones in your body may directly affect glucose levels. If you’re experiencing stress or feeling threatened, your body reacts. This is called the fight-or-flight response. This response elevates your hormone levels and causes your nerve cells to fire. During this response, your body releases adrenaline and cortisol into your bloodstream and your respiratory rates increase. Your body directs blood to the muscles and limbs, allowing you to fight the situation. Your body may not be able to process the glucose released by your firing nerve cells if you have diabetes. If you can’t convert the glucose into energy, it builds up in the bloodstream. This causes your blood glucose levels to rise. Constant stress from long-term problems with blood glucose can also wear you down mentally and physically. This may make managing your diabetes difficult.


How can different types of stress affect your diabetes?

Stress can affect people differently. The type of stress that you experience can also have an impact on your body’s physical response. When people with type 2 diabetes are under mental stress, they generally experience an increase in their blood glucose levels. People with type 1 diabetes may have a more varied response. This means that they can experience either an increase or a decrease in their blood glucose levels. When you’re under physical stress, your blood sugar can also increase. This can happen when you’re sick or injured. This can affect people with type 1 or type 2 diabetes.


How can you determine if mental stress is affecting your glucose levels?

Keeping track of additional information, such as the date and what you were doing at the time you were stressed, may help you determine specific triggers. For example, are you more stressed on Monday mornings? If so, you know now to take special steps on Monday mornings to lower your stress and keep your glucose in check. You can figure out if this is happening to you by capturing your stress and glucose levels. If you feel stressed, rate your level of mental stress on a scale from 1 to 10. Ten represents the highest level of stress. Write this number down. After rating your stress, you should check your glucose levels. Continue doing this for the next couple of weeks. Before long, you may see a pattern emerge. If you notice that your glucose is regularly high, it’s likely that your mental stress is negatively affecting you blood sugar.

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