Stress and Blood Glucose Levels - Thoughts?

[DavidGrahamJones]

I suspect that chronic stress is also not good for BG levels,

I think it's fair to say that most of the available literature points to BG being affected by stress, possibly due to the affect on the adrenals. Very nice demonstration though. As for dealing with online bullies, it can be difficult to hold back but I try to remember that if you give someone a piece of rope long enough, they WILL hang themselves. Your bully obviously did. Excellent.

 

[douglas99]

Interesting to see how sharply a stressful situation can raise levels on a graph. I was told and have read a few times that stress raises blood glucose but the opposite seems to happen to me in my experience. A couple of times I've been quite stressed out about something I've noticed a sharp drop personally - I don't have a Libre to back up what was happening continuously but on one occasion a couple of months ago went from 7.5 to 3.8 within 30 minutes and was quite stressed out at the time.

Possibly it depends on the type of stress?
That was a classic fight or flight, NoCtbs4Me having decided on fight.

Even on a totally carb free diet, completely fat adapted, the body is still going to need glucose for the muscles to be efficient short term, or the fight won't last long. Fat adapted is good for long, endurance,
Short, high impact exercise, like a fight (or a gym session) is better suited to burning glucose.
So the body reverts to type, and takes your BG up to where you're going to ready for the expected exercise.
Then like every other increase in BG, after two hours it's back down to normal.

Other types of stress, where I know I can't do anything about it, like the dentist, when I know I'm not going to fight, or run off, I get stressed, but I tend to fall asleep.

 

[JohnEGreen]

Stress tell me about it, my 22 year old grandson lives with us the only time I'm not stressed is when I'm sleeping or he is.

 

[Lampman]

I suppose that is a natural reaction, the fight or flight thing. Adrenalin and glucose released due to the situation. The sheer scale of that is a surprise though! I know my life had been very stressful for a few years before my diagnosis and I was told that would have been a contributing factor. It is certainly a lesson to us all, and thank you for sharing.

 

[NoCrbs4Me]

So sorry to read about your stressful day - my levels had been coming down nicely but at the start of this week I had a nasty interview with my area manager ( I'm currently signed off work ) after this for the following 2 days my fasting levels were over 10 . They hadn't been that for weeks. Today I'm 6.9 which is the lowest since my diagnosis in March .
There is definitely a link with stress and high levels .
Enjoy your holiday!

Thanks! After my holiday I'm going to work on reducing my chronic stress. I'm going to look into taking up meditation.

 

[fletchweb]

View attachment 22795

I thought this was interesting. This past Tuesday I had a very stressful event occur

Wonderful that you took the time to monitor your BGs during this stress event. As a Type 1 abnormal stress definitely impacts my BGs and as a result I spent a lot of time and focus in finding a job that did not stress me out - Unfortunately it took a long time to find one LOL

My best example of a stressful impact was years ago when I was driving the kids to school. It was February (winter) and I rolled my vehicle in to a deep ditch after hitting a sheet of ice on the road. We regained consciousness up side down - we were all rushed to hospital via ambulance to get stitched up

When I took my BGs before we left I was sitting at 6.5 - when I told the first responders I was type 1 they took my BGs and I was in the 15s - my blood Pressure was high too - I guess a bad accident will do that to you - we all got the day off though ...

 

[Freema]

maybe stress raises the insuline even more...

 

[Brunneria]

Thanks for showing this so clearly @NoCrbs4Me

It is something i think we all experience - to different degrees and unknowingly, most of the time.

I remember being astonished when a very disturbed night (woke from deep sleep and rushed outside to break up a cat-fox fight, brandishing a broom - one of those heart thundering disoriented dragged from deep sleep things) completely messed my blood glucose up.

The next mornng, my blood glucose fasting reading was 5mmol/l higher than usual, and then i swung from high to low for a couple of days, even with very low carbing. Interesting experience!

Stress hormones play a huge part, and I for one don't pretend to understand more than the tip of the iceberg.

 

[douglas99]

Great Graph @NoCrbs4Me! Very helpful to observe the process. Regarding your post @douglas99, I believe the body, under stress, ups BG but it doesn't have time to convert fat or protein to glucose so it must be relying on stores in the liver. The liver can store about 100 grams of glucose. Is there another source of glucose? Muscle glucose can't exit the cells back into the blood stream. So perhaps another source or the cortisol & adrenaline force a rapid conversion?
I'm wondering if a 30 minute walk before an anticipated event (meeting with boss, dentist, divorce lawyer) could burn off glucose to make less available during the event? Sort of a pre-flight or fight intervention?

The muscles use there own stores first, the rise attributable to the liver tends to be used initially by the nervous system.

 

[lowedb]

Ive had a couple of times recently where I've been stressed, and seen higher numbers. It could be a simple food thing but I don't think so. Last few days I've been in the 5s and 6s, but after a disastrous stressing out over a missing delivery (yeah I know it sounds insignificant but I've wasted two whole days and don't know how many more I'll be wasting) today, my BG was almost 9. Previous time I'd been in the 7s and went above 10 for the first time in months after a real stress. I felt particularly bad during that one too.

 

[serenity648]

My panic attacks and night terrors have returned over the past week, I know what triggered them, and can talk myself down these days, more or less, after a while. But my fasting bloods have been much higher and the daytime ones are all over the place.

 

[douglas99]

My panic attacks and night terrors have returned over the past week, I know what triggered them, and can talk myself down these days, more or less, after a while. But my fasting bloods have been much higher and the daytime ones are all over the place.

Night terrors - I am plagued by them.
I usually get 'haunted'
Originally it was leaving my body, and flying, but then not being able to got back into it.
Then I learnt to love the flying, but became so lucid in my dream state I knew I would always win, so it stopped being a terror.

Sadly then I stopped flying, and my brain moved on.
Probably lower into the gutter.
I really was haunted by a 'shaker' style Presbyterian family (yes, my dreams are that precise).
Lucid dreaming, I realised they couldn't hurt me, but I could kick them.
Woke up to no duvet many a time.
Now, I simply get haunted by whatever my mind can invent, and my wakeup is trying to sit up.
(Try that when you're fast asleep, and your body won't move)
But I'm always totally lucid, I know it's a dream, as I wear glasses, and in my dreams everything is in focus, so I know it's not real, otherwise it would be blurry, so I can kick the 'ghosts' and know they can't touch me.
Nightmare on Elm Street it isn't.
I've actually got to the state were I sort of enjoy them, but I scare the **** out of everyone else that can hear me, as I do shout, with sleep paralyzed vocal cords.

 

[serenity648]

Night terrors - I am plagued by them.
I usually get 'haunted'
Originally it was leaving my body, and flying, but then not being able to got back into it.
Then I learnt to love the flying, but became so lucid in my dream state I knew I would always win, so it stopped being a terror.

Sadly then I stopped flying, and my brain moved on.
Probably lower into the gutter.
I really was haunted by a 'shaker' style Presbyterian family (yes, my dreams are that precise).
Lucid dreaming, I realised they couldn't hurt me, but I could kick them.
Woke up to no duvet many a time.
Now, I simply get haunted by whatever my mind can invent, and my wakeup is trying to sit up.
(Try that when you're fast asleep, and your body won't move)
But I'm always totally lucid, I know it's a dream, as I wear glasses, and in my dreams everything is in focus, so I know it's not real, otherwise it would be blurry, so I can kick the 'ghosts' and know they can't touch me.
Nightmare on Elm Street it isn't.
I've actually got to the state were I sort of enjoy them, but I scare the **** out of everyone else that can hear me, as I do shout, with sleep paralyzed vocal cords.

mine are very specific and PTSD related.

 

[douglas99]

mine are very specific and PTSD related.

I don't know what to say on that, I doubt I'll get rid of mine, I just learnt to live with them.

 

[serenity648]

I don't know what to say on that, I doubt I'll get rid of mine, I just learnt to live with them.

Yes, we just keep going. What doesnt kill us makes us strong - as my Grandma would say : )

 

[douglas99]

Yes, we just keep going. What doesnt kill us makes us strong - as my Grandma would say : )

True, I can have a fight, wake up get the duvet back and roll over and go straight back to sleep!

 

[Moosepig]

Hi @mandy_horsley
would you like me to create a new thread for you -- it may help you to get specific answers to your query ??

yes please, that might really help me.

 

[ickihun]

My bgs cope with all stress then a few days/months later when its died down. I have bg melt down.
I keep up the bridge until its no longer needed then I collapse. Always.
I relish in stressful situations. I absorb everything incase its relied upon later.
I wonder if you'll get a delayed blip later too?

Its when concurrent stresses push me is when I begin to worry.

 

[lizdeluz]

View attachment 22795

I thought this was interesting. This past Tuesday I had a very stressful event occur while I had a Freestyle Libre sensor running. I'm a recovering type 2 and I like to see how things are going occasionally by using a Freestyle Libre sensor.

A little background: The stressful event was a mediated meeting with a person with apparent mental health issues. We are both in the same volunteer organization and the person made hateful and delusional posts to and about me on the organization's closed Facebook page. Essentially, they thought I was a negative influence on the organization and wanted me out and thought that could be achieved by posting outlandish attacks on me online. The person was immediately suspended and the organization's leadership thought the best way to resolve this was mediation between the two of us.

So, the meeting was this past Tuesday at 7:30 pm. I got there a bit early at 7:20 pm and I felt stressed as soon as I got there. The meeting started at 7:35 pm. It lasted about 10 minutes. The graph above shows my blood glucose levels before, during, and after the meeting. I did not have any carbs before the meeting, or even that day. It's quite impressive how high my BG went up.

There was a satisfactory ending: about 30 seconds after the person began to speak (after I had a chance to speak about the situation for about 5 minutes first), the meeting was shut down and the person immediately ejected from the oganization due to the crazy things they started saying. It took quite a bit of self-restraint for me to not leap over the table and throttle the person. It was probably the most stressful moment in many years for me.

I suspect that chronic stress is also not good for BG levels, so I think it's important to focus on more than just food when it comes to controlling blood glucose levels. I suspect that the reason taking a half hour walk 5 days a week works to lower blood glucose levels is that it acts to lower stress. Reduction of chronic stress is definitely something I need to work on.

Does anyone else have any thoughts or personal experiences with respect to acute and/or chronic stress and blood glucose levels?

Well, in my heart I believe that stress caused my Type 1 in the first place. And then, afterwards, it was alarmingly interesting to see the effects of stress on blood sugar - not to mention the need I felt to eat the wrong things when I WAS stressed, thereby making the blood sugar level worse. I'm glad you raised the issue - giving details of the stress and plotting the stress graph from the Libre - and I think it's an area that doctors tend not to investigate because patients tend not to want to disclose these sensitive issues and angst.

 

[luna50]

ABOUT STRESS and DIABETES

Individuals who discover this problem on them self is NOT unknown problem in the Medical Science.

Please READ following Sites and be wise about the problem:

https://www.google.dk/search?q=diagram+for+stress+og+glucose&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjI1p7CuNjTAhXhCJoKHauyAUkQsAQILw&biw=1280&bih=599#spf=1

http://www.diabetes.co.uk/diabetes-destress.html

http://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/understanding-the-stress-response

https://dtc.ucsf.edu/types-of-diabetes/type2/understanding-type-2-diabetes/how-the-body-processes-sugar/blood-sugar-stress/