Signs Of High/low Blood Sugar
Even without measuring your blood sugar levels, there are certain clues that things might not be normal. How do you know if youre not successfully managing your blood sugar levels throughout the day? Common signs and symptoms not to ignore that can signify diabetes and fluctuating blood sugar levels include:
Normal Blood Sugar Takeaways
What Are The Signs Of Hypoglycemia
An individual may frequently wake up in the middle of the night as a result of nighttime hypoglycemia. In other instances, though, people may know if they experienced hypoglycemia during their sleep if they notice the following symptoms:
- Waking up with a headache
- Waking up in a sweat
- Getting unusual feelings of tiredness throughout the day
- Experiencing anxiety or heart palpitations
- Feeling confused, dizzy or weak
What Is Blood Glucose Monitoring
People use blood glucose monitoring to regularly test glucose levels in the blood.
It is an essential part of effective diabetes control. Many people with diabetes must check several times each day to plan for activities and meals, as well as scheduling doses of medication or insulin.
A person can test their blood glucose levels with a glucometer. They usually come with lancets, or tiny needles, a logbook to record results, and test strips.
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How To Keep Your Sugar Level Even All Day
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During digestion, the foods you eat, mainly carbohydrates, are broken down into glucose, a type of sugar. Your blood stream then carries this sugar to your body’s tissues and organs to use for fuel. Maintaining stable blood sugar levels is not only crucial to providing energy, but can also reduce the risk of developing diabetic complications. Whether you have diabetes or just want to eliminate daily energy slumps, what you eat and when you eat is key to avoiding blood-sugar spikes. By making a few adjustments in meal planning, you can help keep your blood sugar level even all day.
Start your day with breakfast. According to Clemson University, breakfast replenishes blood sugar after your night’s sleep and energizes your body so you perform better mentally and physically. Cooked oatmeal with low-fat milk and fresh berries or whole-grain toast and peanut butter with an apple are good choices.
Create meals and snacks that combine carbohydrates, proteins and a small amount of fat. When these foods are combined, the digestion process takes more time, providing your body with slow, even-burning fuel that maintains stable blood sugar levels. A skinless chicken breast with brown rice and steamed broccoli or, low-fat yogurt with fresh fruit and a slice of whole-grain bread are two excellent carbohydrate-protein-fat meal combinations.
References
Get A Good Nights Sleep
While this is an important tip for good health generally, it especially supports blood sugar regulation.
Lack of sleep drastically reduces glucose tolerance. This makes it more difficult for cells to uptake glucose, causing elevated blood sugar levels. This connection is so significant that researchers found that less than 1 week of sleep restriction can result in a prediabetic state in young, healthy subjects.
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Dont Rely On Supplements Or Vitamins
Theres no shortcut to maintaining good blood sugars. A supplement or vitamin alone will not give you healthy blood sugar levels and they can interact negatively with other medications. Speak to your healthcare provider and perhaps ask for a referral for a dietitian who specializes in blood sugar control before incorporating dietary supplements, shakes, or vitamins to achieve blood sugar control.
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Stick To An Eating Schedule
Dr. Kara warns against skipping meals frequently to avoid the rollercoaster of high to low blood sugar surges and dips. Spreading your meals out throughout the day, rather than eating a large breakfast or large dinner can help to regulate blood sugar. Eating regularly from morning through evening is the best strategy.
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Lifestyle For Stable Blood Sugar
Exercise helps to improve your insulin sensitivity, meaning your cells won’t ignore insulin’s call to get excess sugar out of the blood. Not to mention, when you exercise, your muscles are using up that sugar they absorbed from your blood. But you already knew that exercise is healthy, didn’t you?
Would you believe that stress affects your blood sugar levels? Yup! Stress hormones increase your blood sugar levels. If you think about the “fight or flight” stress response, what fuel does your brain and muscles need to “fight” or “flee”? Sugar! When you are stressed, signals are sent to release stored forms of sugar back into the bloodstream, increasing blood sugar levels. So, learn to reduce the stress you’re under and manage it more effectively. Simple tips are meditation, deep breathing, or gentle movement .
Sleep goes hand-in-hand with stress. When you don’t get enough quality sleep, you tend to release stress hormones, have a higher appetite, and even get sugar cravings. Sleep is a crucial, often overlooked, factor when it comes to keeping your blood sugar stable. Make sleep a priority! It will do your blood sugar a ton of good.
Make Sure To Eat Fiber At Meals And Snacks
When you eat refined white flour, such as pizza crusts, pasta, or crackers, your body is taking in carbs and sugars only and will experience more significant spikes in blood sugar, as there’s no fiber to keep levels stable or to slow digestion.
“Focus on fiber-rich foods to not only manage a post-meal rise in blood sugar but also to assist with gut health as well,” Harris-Pincus says.
Indeed, eating fiber-rich and blood sugar-friendly foods will promote your body’s gut-healthy bacteria, which can further help to balance blood sugar, while keeping your digestive system regular. High-fiber foods include fruits with skin, vegetables, beans and legumes, nuts and seeds, and whole grains, as well as other fortified cereals.
Related:
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What Is The Dawn Phenomenon
Another reason for high nighttime blood sugar levels is the dawn phenomenon. The dawn phenomenon occurs early in the morning when the body naturally signals your liver to produce glucose, giving your body the energy it needs to wake up.
The hormonal changes associated with the dawn phenomenon happen to people with or without diabetes, though those without diabetes do not experience hyperglycemia. If you take insulin, you may need to try a new basal insulin or adjust the timing and amount of your basal dose or your nighttime basal rates to cover an early morning rise.
Easy Ways To Lower Blood Sugar Levels Naturally
High blood sugar, also known as hyperglycemia, is associated with diabetes and prediabetes. Prediabetes is when your blood sugar is high, but not high enough to be classified as diabetes.
Your body usually manages your blood sugar levels by producing insulin, a hormone that allows your cells to use the circulating sugar in your blood. As such, insulin is the most important regulator of blood sugar levels .
However, multiple factors can impair blood sugar management and lead to hyperglycemia.
Internal causes for high blood sugar include when your liver produces too much glucose, your body makes too little insulin, or your body cant effectively use insulin. The latter is known as insulin resistance (
2 ).
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 13% of U.S. adults live with diabetes and that another 34.5% have prediabetes. This means that close to 50% of all U.S. adults have diabetes or prediabetes .
Blood sugar management is especially important for people with diabetes, as chronically high blood sugar levels can lead to limb and life threatening complications (
Increased insulin sensitivity means your cells can more effectively use the available sugar in your bloodstream.
Exercise also helps your muscles use blood sugar for energy and muscle contraction .
Whats more, researchers recommend doing so-called exercise snacks to lower blood sugar and prevent the damage that sitting all day can do .
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The Ultimate Guide On How To Keep Blood Sugar Stable
How do you keep a stable blood sugar? Well, that is the question that everyone with diabetes has been asking themselves every day.
The key is considering all areas of life. Different aspects of life will have an impact on blood sugar in different ways. We have covered a few different areas of life in our other blog posts. For this reason, this blog post can be seen as a kind of Greatest Hits of the Hedia blog. Move along Abba Gold, now is the time to Lay All Your Love on Hedia.
Strap yourself in for a list of tips that includes some old Hedia wisdom along with some brand new tips!
Are You Riding The Blood Sugar Roller Coaster
Do you:
- Depend on coffee for energy?
- Get hangry or irritable when meals are missed or delayed?
- Feel light-headed, get shaky or the jitters, have brain fog if meals are missed or delayed?
If yes, then your blood sugar levels are likely imbalanced going through a series of unhealthy spikes and crashes.
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Start The Day With A Breakfast High In Healthy Fat And Protein
Piggybacking off of tip #1 its ESPECIALLY important to keep blood sugar levels steady in the morning with a breakfast high in protein and healthy fat. Because maintaining balanced blood sugar levels in the morning will keep them steady through to lunch without the snack-attack or need for coffee.
And eating breakfast in itself is important for blood sugar regulation. When you skip out on breakfast, your body produces the stress hormones cortisol, which in turn elevates blood sugar levels.
Increase Your Fiber Intake
High fiber is key to the foods that lower blood sugar, so increasing your soluble fiber intake will help you lower your blood sugar. Focus on eating foods that stabilize blood sugar such as unrefined carbohydrates like whole grain bread or pasta, sweet potatoes, legumes, lentils, nuts, and non-starchy vegetables.
Another perk? High fiber foods can help you feel fuller. That can help you avoid overeating or craving foods that can negatively affect your blood sugar. Men should aim for 30 to 38 grams daily, and women 21 to 25 grams daily, according to the Mayo Clinic.
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What Are Some Tips To Prevent Nighttime Blood Sugar Level Dips
What To Eat To Keep Your Blood Sugar In Check
Swap difficult diets for good and simple healthy foods. Hereâs how.
You need to eat wisely to keep your diabetes in check. The key is to choose healthy foods and portion sizes so that you can control both your weight and blood sugar levels.
The first step: Learn whatâs good for you, says diabetes educator Emmy Suhl, RD, CDE, of Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston.
âThereâs no such thing as a diabetes diet,â Suhl says. âThe best diet for someone with diabetes is your basic, healthy diet.â
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How To Lower Blood Sugar Naturally
Blood sugar, also known as glucose, is the main sugar in your blood and your bodys main source of energy. Blood sugars vary all day. A normal fasting blood sugar is less than 100 mg/dl. Blood sugars anytime of day regardless of when or what the last meal was should always be under 200 mg/dl. Blood sugars exceeding these two levels could signal prediabetes or Type 1 diabetes or Type 2 diabetes. Diabetes is a condition where the body cannot produce enough insulin or use insulin properly to correct blood sugars to safe levels.
Exercise In The Afternoon
Exercise lowers blood sugar by increasing insulin sensitivity, which allows the body to use insulin and glucose more effectively, increasing glucose movement during and after exercise. Studies have shown that exercise will lead to optimal insulin regulation. Exercise after dinner will set you up for steady glucose levels through the morning.
Research has also shown that moderate-intensity aerobic exercise before breakfast reduced the morning rise of blood glucose in type 2 diabetes patients, partially counteracting the dawn phenomenon. The same study also found that exercise significantly reduced blood glucose fluctuations and improved blood glucose control throughout the day.
Some of the best exercises for avoiding morning blood sugar spikes include:
- A walk
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Keeping Your Blood Sugar Steady
With certain strategies, you can help prevent spikes in your blood sugar levels, says Toby Smithson, RD, LDN, CDE,a spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and the founder of DiabetesEveryday.com.
Rather than focus on things you shouldn’t have, try incorporating the following foods and healthy habits into your daily type 2 diabetes routine:
Go nuts. Nuts such as almonds, walnuts, and pistachios contain healthy fat that slows the body’s absorption of sugar. But be sure to limit how many nuts you eat in one sitting because even healthy fats contain calories, Smithson says. Just six almonds or four pecan halves have the same number of calories as one teaspoon of butter.
Eat whole grains. Oat bran, barley, and rye are fiber-rich foods that contain beta-glucan. This soluble fiber increases the amount of time it takes for your stomach to empty after eating and prevents spikes in blood sugar. Remember, though, that these foods are still carbohydrates. “Whole grains will still raise your blood sugar, just not as quickly and as high as processed foods,” Li-Ng says.
Veg out. Packed with fiber, non-starchy vegetables such as broccoli, cucumber, and carrots can also help prevent surges in blood sugar levels while providing essential nutrients.
Great Bedtime Snacks For People Living With Diabetes
For some people, a healthy bedtime snack helps to prevent glucose swings during the night. By eating a small snack that is full of protein and healthy fats , your body may be better able to avoid an overnight high but if you take insulin, be sure to cover the carbohydrates in your snack even if it only requires a small dose of insulin.
Here are some snack ideas:
-
Plain nuts or seeds try eating a small handful
-
Raw vegetables, such as carrots, celery, cucumbers, or tomatoes, with a small amount of hummus or peanut butter
-
Plain yogurt, and you can add berries or cinnamon
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Drink Water And Stay Hydrated
Drinking enough water could help you keep your blood sugar levels within healthy ranges.
In addition to preventing dehydration, it helps your kidneys flush out any excess sugar through urine.
One review of observational studies showed that those who drank more water had a lower risk of developing high blood sugar levels (
34 ).
You can do so at home using a portable blood glucose meter, which is known as a glucometer. You can discuss this option with your doctor.
Keeping track allows you to determine whether you need to adjust your meals or medications. It also helps you learn how your body reacts to certain foods .
Try measuring your levels regularly every day and keeping track of the numbers in a log. Also, it may be more helpful to track your blood sugar in pairs for example, before and after exercise or before and 2 hours after a meal.
This can show you whether you need to make small changes to a meal if it spikes your blood sugar, rather than avoiding your favorite meals altogether. Some adjustments include swapping a starchy side for non-starchy veggies or limiting them to a handful.
Summary
Checking your blood glucose and maintaining a daily log enables you to adjust foods and medications when necessary to better manage your blood sugar levels.
Prevent Blood Sugar Spikes By Following These Tips
Crisps, candy, cake: we love to snack, but we do try to do so in moderation. Yet in some cases thats easier said than done. For some people, its impossible to not eat anything for a few hours without getting shaky and grumpy. This might have something to do with your blood sugar levels not being stable.
If your blood sugar levels are stable, youll feel more energised and fit.
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How Do You Treat Hypoglycemia
Treatment for hypoglycemia involves both the immediate steps needed to raise your blood sugar level in addition with the later treatment or medication dose adjustment to prevent recurrence.
To immediately raise your blood sugar level, Dr. Shah advocates the rule of 15eating 15 grams of carbohydrates and then checking your blood sugar level 15 minutes later. Fast-acting carbohydrates include:
- 4 glucose tablets
- 4 ounces of fruit juices
Keep repeating these steps every 15 minutes until your blood sugar reaches above 70 mg/dL, he explains. Once your level has stabilized, its important to then eat a snack or even a full meal to maintain that balance, Dr. Shah adds.
If your symptoms are more severe and/or a person is unable to swallow, you may need an injection of glucagon, he says.
To prevent episodes of hypoglycemia in the future, Dr. Shah says that treatment may involve the changing of prescribed regimens and dosages or adjusting your meal plans.