JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Thursday, July 10, 2025

STRESS AND DIABETES - THE VICIOUS CYCLE

by

1696 days ago
20201117

HEALTH PLUS MED­ICAL COR­RE­SPON­DENT

Di­a­betes man­age­ment is a life­long process. This can add stress to your dai­ly life. Stress can be a ma­jor bar­ri­er to ef­fec­tive glu­cose con­trol. Con­stant stress from long-term prob­lems with blood glu­cose can al­so wear you down men­tal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly. This may make man­ag­ing your di­a­betes dif­fi­cult, thus, cre­at­ing a Vi­cious Cy­cle.

Stress and your Hor­mones

If you are 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. Cor­ti­sol is com­mon­ly known as the stress hor­mone. It can stim­u­late the pro­duc­tion of glu­cose in the body and raise a per­son’s blood sug­ar.

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 ex­cess glu­cose re­leased if you have di­a­betes. If you can­not con­vert the glu­cose in­to en­er­gy, it builds up in the blood­stream. This caus­es your blood glu­cose lev­els to rise or spike!

Stress can ac­ti­vate the hy­po­thal­a­m­ic pi­tu­itary adren­al ax­is and the sym­pa­thet­ic ner­vous sys­tem. This can cause hor­mon­al changes, such as high­er cor­ti­sol lev­els and low­er lev­els of sex hor­mones. The lev­els of these hor­mones af­fect in­sulin lev­els.

Peo­ple with ab­nor­mal hor­mone lev­els may no­tice their Waist-To-Hip Ra­tio in­creas­ing, this means that the size of the waist is be­com­ing larg­er than the hips with in­creased adi­pose tis­sue. This is an im­por­tant risk fac­tor for com­pli­ca­tions of di­a­betes and car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease.

What are the symp­toms of stress?

Some­times, the symp­toms of stress are sub­tle and you may not no­tice them. Stress can take a toll on your men­tal and emo­tion­al well-be­ing, and it can al­so im­pact your phys­i­cal health. Recog­nis­ing the symp­toms can help you iden­ti­fy stress and take steps to man­age it.

If you’re stressed, you may ex­pe­ri­ence:

- headaches

- mus­cle pain or ten­sion

- sleep­ing too much or too lit­tle

- gen­er­al feel­ings of ill­ness

- fa­tigue

If you’re stressed, you may feel:

- un­mo­ti­vat­ed

- ir­ri­ta­ble

- de­pressed

- rest­less

- anx­ious

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 one to 10 with 10 rep­re­sent­ing the high­est lev­el of stress. This will be use­ful if you de­cide to see a ther­a­pist.

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 con­sis­tent­ly high, it’s like­ly that your men­tal stress is neg­a­tive­ly af­fect­ing your blood sug­ar.

How to cope with di­a­betes-re­lat­ed stress

If you’re feel­ing stressed about your con­di­tion, ac­knowl­edg­ing that you aren’t alone is the FIRST STEP. The next step may in­volve your health care team. We en­cour­age all pa­tients to feel com­fort­able in be­ing open about your stres­sors with your health care physi­cian.

WHAT CAN YOU DO AT HOME?

- Re­duc­ing men­tal stress

- Med­i­tat­ing can help re­move neg­a­tive thoughts and al­low your mind to re­lax.

- Con­sid­er start­ing each morn­ing with a 15-minute med­i­ta­tion. This will set the tone for the rest of your day.

- Sit in a chair with your feet firm­ly plant­ed on the floor and your eyes closed.

- Re­cite a mantra that makes sense to you, such as “I will have a good day” or “I feel at peace with the world.” Push away any oth­er thoughts as they en­ter your head, and al­low your­self to be present in the mo­ment.

Re­duc­ing emo­tion­al stress

If you find your­self in an over­whelm­ing emo­tion­al state, TAKE A PAUSE…take a few min­utes to be by your­self. Re­move your­self from your cur­rent en­vi­ron­ment. Find a qui­et space to fo­cus on your breath­ing. Try this mind­ful­ness prac­tice:

Put your hand on your bel­ly, and feel it rise and fall. In­hale deep breaths, and ex­hale slow­ly and loud­ly. This will slow your heart­beat down, and help bring you back to a sta­ble emo­tion­al state. This act of cen­tring your­self may im­prove how you deal with what­ev­er is caus­ing the stress.

Re­duc­ing phys­i­cal stress

Adding yo­ga to your dai­ly rou­tine can pro­vide both phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty and med­i­ta­tion at the same time. Prac­tic­ing yo­ga can low­er your blood pres­sure, too. Whether it’s yo­ga or an­oth­er form of ex­er­cise, you should aim for 30 min­utes of car­dio­vas­cu­lar ex­er­cise per day. You can do 10 min­utes of ex­er­cise when you wake up, 10 min­utes in the af­ter­noon, and 10 min­utes be­fore you go to sleep.

YOUR MIND MAT­TERS

Al­though di­a­betes can present a unique set of chal­lenges when com­pli­cat­ed by stress, it is pos­si­ble to man­age it ef­fec­tive­ly and lead a hap­py, healthy lifestyle. Un­der­stand­ing the di­men­sions of stress and prac­ti­cal cop­ing strate­gies to pro­tect your mind is key to con­trol­ling the de­bil­i­tat­ing se­que­lae of Di­a­betes.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored