Care Line 0500 467466
Dealing with stress
How your body reacts to stress
When you feel under pressure you may find that your blood glucose level begins to climb. When you are stressed your body releases a mixture of hormones, commonly known as the 'fight-or-flight hormones'. Their role is to get you ready to stand and fight or to run away, by releasing lots of stored energy, making it available for your muscles to use.
A lot of the stress many people feel is mental stress, not physical stress. But your body does not seem to know the difference. So, although you are unlikely to be running away or getting into a fight, the mental stress will be making your fight-or-flight hormones pump glucose into your blood, even though you don't really need it.
Stress and diabetes
When you understand about the fight-orflight hormones, it's clear that stress will tend to raise your blood glucose levels. This certainly seems to be true if you have type II diabetes.
For type I diabetes, however, the situation is not so clear-cut. For some people with type I diabetes, their levels may go down, possibly due to a change in routine, or increased physical activity.
Keeping stress under control
Sometimes stress cannot be avoided, but although you may not be able to live a stress-free life, there are things you can do to help reduce its effects.
Here are a few suggestions:
- Identify what is causing your stress
Take time to identify what is causing you concern. Then the trick is to accept that some things are beyond your control and then focus upon the things you can influence - Exercise
Taking more exercise can be an excellent way to reduce the effects of stress. Exercise can distract you from many problems; it also makes your body release hormones called endorphins which make you feel happy and contented - Relaxation techniques
There are many relaxation techniques available. Here is one technique to try. Sit down for five minutes, relax and take some deep steady breaths - in through your nose, hold it for a few seconds and then out through your mouth
When you feel stressed
Understand how stress affects your diabetes. When you are doing your regular blood glucose tests, before each test give yourself a stress score on a scale between 1 and 5, for example:
Record your stress level next to your blood glucose result in your monitoring diary. Over time, if stress affects your blood glucose you will begin to see a pattern of disrupted levels and high stress scores.
