Dr. Jaiwant Rangi explains how stress raises blood glucose by triggering a hormonal cascade: insulin drops while glucagon, epinephrine, and cortisol surge, reducing insulin sensitivity. Chronic stress also weakens immunity and drives emotional eating through cortisol-driven carb cravings. He covers practical tools: exercise, breathing, sleep, social time, and tracking stress triggers to stabilize glucose without more medication.
Chapters
Stress is not always a bad thing. Without stress, we wouldn't react to dangers or life challenges or for some people, be able to meet the deadlines. So the right amount of stress can help us improve our performance and help with daily life. In some situations, however, stress should be temporary and it shouldn't make you feel ill. Stress can affect people differently. When people with diabetes are under mental stress, they generally experience increase in the blood sugar levels. But some people may have more varied response. This means that they can have experience either a high or a low blood sugar. Now, when you're under physical stress, your blood sugar level can also rise. Now this can happen due to either sickness or injury. Let's try to understand how the stress influences various hormones in our body. When we are stressed out, the body prepares itself by ensuring that there's enough sugar or energy to be readily available for that. Insulin levels fall and glucagon and epinephrine or adrenaline levels rise and more glucose is released from the liver. Now at the same time, growth hormone and cortisol levels rise as well, which causes the muscle and fat to be less sensitive to insulin. And as a result, there's more glucose available in the bloodstream. Stress can also lead to weakened immune response. During stress episode, the concentration of pro inflammatory cytokines and glucocorticoids in our body rises. Cytokines work on the receptors that coordinate the immune response in the body and play a critical role in controlling the immune system. However, long term stress leads to high level of various glucocorticoids like cortisol, which reduces the number of immune cells that affects our immune system and over time leaving our body more prone to infections. Another common response of stress is emotional eating. High level of cortisol can trick our brain into thinking that our body does not have enough energy to fight the danger that makes us crave more sugar. And after we ingest the carbs, our brain gets stimulated to produce more serotonin which is the happiness hormone which stabilizes our mood. Now the serotonin helps sleep well, positively impacts our mood and improves our digestion. So, knowing all this, what can we do to manage our stress? To stabilize the glucose level, there are few things we can do. So here's a few of the things that you can positively do. Track your stress. Use a journal. Write down what triggers your stress and work on that. Find the stress relieving activity. Engage in a sport or or try a hobby that can help you relax and take your mind away from stressful situation. Remind yourself to do this kind of an activity every day for at least an hour. Break away from routine Consider taking a break from your daily routine. Travel somewhere new to get out of your comfort zone and to take a breather from stress of everyday life. Take a breather. Learn how to manage stress Whenever you're doing breathing exercises, try to do meditation or breathing exercises at least for 15 minutes a day. That will allow your mind to relax and give you a chance to step away from the responsibility and the chaos of life for at least a bit. Engage with others. Meeting with family and friends and spending time with people who make you feel relaxed. Play some board game, watch a movie or have a family meal together. Reevaluate your career. Maybe that's bringing you stress. Put yourself first. Focus on yourself and create a healthy lifestyle and a dietary pattern. Exercise regularly, improve your sleeping pattern and minimize the stress responses to stressful situations. Cut down on the habits like alcohol intake or cigarette smoking and curb binge eating now. While all these habits can comfort you only for a short period of time, they do more harm than good in the long run. Last but not the least, remember to ask for help. If overwhelming stress is starting to affect your mental health, it's always best to have someone to talk to rather than try to deal with all this or stressful situation on your own. We should also make conscious effort to avoid certain negative coping mechanisms. For example, relying heavily on prescription medications can have more side effects that we'll have to deal with. Distracting yourself too much with endless hours of television or social media can can also dull the brain. Withdrawing from social life if you have social anxiety can feel like a proper response, but social isolation can also cause health issues, especially later in life. Overeating or undereating can both lead to unhealthy weight fluctuations. Turning to vices like alcohol or smoking can feel stress relieving, but only increases your risk of other ailments. I hope you got some help from stress management and identifying what brings you stress so you can work on those and help stabilize your glucose levels without adding more medications. Thank you so much for listening and good luck.
