Unfortunately, stress is virtually a lifestyle today, and many people have grown used to feeling anxious, with muscles tensed, that we aren't even aware we're stressed. One way to notice that you're stressed is to log your blood sugars and see whether, when they are high, there is a stressful event going on in your life. The American Diabetes Association suggests that before testing your blood sugar, you rate how stressed you feel by assigning a number between 1 and 10 to your stress level. Then test your blood sugar levels and jot down your blood sugar level next to your mental stress number.
Following a couple of weeks, look at your numbers and see whether you notice any pattern. Would you notice that whenever you wrote down a high stress level, you'd a higher glucose level? If that's the case, it's safe to assume that a minimum of a number of your high sugars were stress-induced. Remember, stress is not necessarily because of negative events. It is also brought on by something positive, such as excitement about your wedding, a visit you are looking forward to, or a job promotion. The first time I addressed a group of patients, I tested my blood sugar levels immediately afterward.
I was expecting it to be low both before and after my talk because I hadn't had time for you to eat lunch beforehand. To my surprise, my blood sugar was 100 points greater than before my talk! When it happened a second time, I realized that my stress hormones had kicked in because of my nervous excitement and raised my blood sugar levels!
Short- and long-term stress and strain also have a toll on your diabetes management. Many diabetes care tasks tend to go by the wayside when you are stressed, and if you ignore your diabetes management, you place yourself at and the higher chances for developing diabetes complications. If one or more from the following phrases describe your recent behavior, try to take one small action to decrease and better manage your stress.
Dr. Surwit describes stress management like a fourth tool to handle diabetes (together with diet, exercise, and medication). Surwit recommends a therapeutic relaxation technique called progressive muscle relaxation (PMR). PMR is a procedure for systematically tensing and relaxing the muscles in your body in a specific sequence. "A large amount of us are walking around under a higher level of arousal," says Surwit, "and progressive muscle relaxation helps people recognize if they are stressed and relax, which reduces their stress hormones and turns off their body's ‘fight or flight' response."
PMR creates a general a feeling of calm by deepening breathing, which can lower levels of stress hormones, blood pressure, heartbeat, and blood sugar. The resulting reduction in blood glucose, says Surwit, could be just as effective as some medications for diabetes control.
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