Blood sugar: an obstacle to your healing?
If we’re talking about building a foundation of healing for the bodymind, blood sugar is at the very top of the list. And perhaps to your surprise, I’m NOT talking about keeping blood sugar as low as possible by avoiding every source of sugar and carbs, though elevated levels do contribute to illness. I’m actually referring more to the opposite—when blood sugar dips too low.
Many patients who come to see me for fatigue, anxiety, inflammation, and various other mystery symptoms are often not eating enough. They view their frequent meal-skipping and under-eating habits as normal, but in reality, those habits are adding to spikes of inflammation and stress physiology that are at the root of their dis-ease.
To clarify: I am also NOT talking about the low blood sugar that occurs with diabetes. Low blood sugar in a person with diabetes requires specific treatment and, sometimes, immediate medical attention. I am referring to the fluctuations in blood sugar that can cause symptoms in individuals without a diagnosis of diabetes.
What is low blood sugar? The basics.
The low blood sugar I’m talking about is often referred to as reactive hypoglycemia—where symptoms emerge some time after eating. Explained in more detail below, this happens when the body takes too much glucose out of the blood, resulting in a drop in blood glucose and a rise in adrenaline, to put it simply. Symptoms like anxiety, sweating, shaking, and many others arise as a result.
Why does blood sugar matter?
Your brain cares about two things on a moment-to-moment basis: oxygen and glucose. If either of these resources dip below your brain’s comfort level, your brain sounds the alarm. Stable blood sugar is necessary for both surviving and thriving. When blood sugar gets too low, stress hormones spike, and inflammation follows. This is poses a direct obstacle to bodymind healing, in the moment and longterm, making it more difficult to heal from conditions like biotoxin illness, autoimmunity, and hormonal imbalance.
How low blood sugar inhibits your healing
Healing of all kinds requires a balance with the nervous system between sympathetic (fight-or-flight) and parasympathetic (rest-digest-connect) pathways. When stress hormones rise to compensate for low glucose (more on this science below), the parasympathetic system is turned down, taking energy away from your healing pathways to prioritize survival.
In addition, spikes and dips in both glucose and various hormones add to the inflammation that fuels chronic dis-ease.
The basic science of blood sugar and healing
Low blood sugar can cause an increase in stress hormones and inhibit your healing. Here’s how.
Your brain is continuously surveying your internal and external environments asking the question, “Am I safe? Am I safe?” And low oxygen or glucose is a big fat NO—not safe. A deficiency in either can actually become life-threatening very quickly, so your brain appropriately mobilizes resources to quickly to bring the levels back up.
In the process, your stress physiology is activated. Sensing danger, your brain very quickly turns up the the Sympathic-adreno-medullar (SAM) axis, which stimulates the production of adrenaline (epinephrine, norepinephrine). Minutes to hours later the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis will stimulate production of cortisol. These hormones mobilize stored fuel in the liver and muscles to increase blood glucose, keeping the brain out of a danger zone.
But in the process of increasing glucose, many other changes occur. Blood is diverted away from your gut and reproductive organs to fuel the heart, lungs, and muscles. Blood flow within the brain changes. Your focus becomes narrowed. Your sight becomes more tunnel-visioned. Your muscles contract and tense, anticipating defending yourself or running away—even when the threat is low blood sugar, your body will mount these offensive and defensive strategies to help you survive.
How does low blood sugar happen in the first place?
What I commonly see is this: you eat a small breakfast, and then when you finally get a chance to eat lunch, your body is in a mild starvation mode. Your brain is primed and ready to take glucose into the cells, and it’s not sure when your next meal will come, so it makes sure you get as much sugar into your cells as possible. Once your digestive system breaks down your food into blood glucose, your pancreas overshoots its insulin response, taking too much glucose out of the bloodsteam, and leading to a blood glucose lower than is comfortable for your brain. That dip in glucose will either prompt hunger or stress hormones.
When the stress response is activated because of low blood sugar, you may experience any of the following symptoms:
Anxiety
Panic
Irritation or anger
Shaking or tremors
Muscle tension
Nausea or stomach pain
Loose stools
Lightheadedness
Headache
Sweating
Racing heart
Inability to focus
In some people, the above symptoms become their most frequent “hunger cues.” Skipping meals and undereating on a regular basis, your body may stop generating typical hunger cues and instead rely more heavily on stress hormones to keep glucose levels up.
The reverse is also possible: individuals with chronically elevated stress hormones will stop feeling hunger cues, because hunger and digestion require input from the parasympathetic nervous system, which is inhibited by stress hormones.
Signs of blood sugar imbalance
Common symptoms that point toward blood sugar imbalance:
Feeling lethargic or foggy after eating
Feeling better after eating than before you ate
Relying on caffeine to keep energy up
A slump in energy between meals
Any of the symptoms of fight-or-flight listed between meals
Regularly skipping meals, eating snacks for meals, going long periods of time without eating, sporadic eating patterns
Waking up in the middle of the night alert, anxious, or even panicked
This list is not comprehensive, nor is it diagnostic. The presence of these symptoms doesn’t confirm an issue with blood sugar, but points toward it.
What causes low blood sugar?
Outside of your eating patterns, various underlying causes can contribute to the tendency toward low blood sugar. Here’s a list of some common factors:
Chronic stress
Undereating
Excessive exercise
Depleted minerals
Disconnect from body and hunger cues
Hormonal imbalance
Alcohol consumption
Diabetes
Insulin and other medications
Other underlying endocrine disorders
What kinds of eating patterns contribute to low blood sugar?
Outside of the above underlying causes, the following eating patterns can greatly impact the tendency toward unstable blood sugar levels:
Skipping meals
Sporadic eating schedules
Not eating enough during meals
The restrict-binge-shame cycle
Imbalance of macronutrients in meals (for example, all carbohydrates without any protein or fats).
Oftentimes addressing these eating patterns will improve both the tendency toward low blood sugar and the symptoms that follow. Committing to nourishing yourself in new ways is an essential part of the healing process.
Blood sugar and embodiment
Your body has built-in signals for regulating appetite, hunger, fullness, and digestion. The body offers us hunger cues, such as stomach sensations or a desire for food, when it needs more fuel and nutrients.
But in today’s fast-paced, mind-over-body world, many people have largely disconnected from their hunger cues. Sometimes this disconnect is intentional, emerging from the desire to lose weight or be more productive. Other times the hunger cues naturally diminish as stress increases, which can become a positive feedback loop of undernourishment and heightened stress reactions.
Ignoring your body’s hunger signals, whether intentional or by accident, will prompt your body to use another method of ensuring your blood sugar remains in the healthy range—through stress hormones (basic science below).
Relying on stress hormones to keep your glucose levels up is very taxing on your system, using up key nutrients to fuel the stress response. Continually relying on a stress response to keep glucose steady leads to breakdown of tissues and increases in inflammation. With stress physiology turned up, your rest-and-digest pathways are turned down, and healing can’t happen as readily.
Steady blood sugar is a foundation of healing
If you want to heal and thrive, steady blood sugar will help you do so. This does not mean your blood glucose must remain constant at all times; moderate spikes and dips are actually a normal part of metabolizing the food you eat. What we don’t want are spikes and dips drastic enough that you become symptomatic. Here are a few signs that blood sugar imbalance could be playing a role in your symptoms
If you suspect blood sugar imbalances are impeding your body’s healing, what do you do next? First of all, find a practitioner you trust who can give you individualized medical advice—this blog is for educational purposes only and is not intended to be used as treatment for your symptoms. But when a client is dealing with blood sugar highs and lows, I give them one or a few of the following recommendations:
How to support healthy blood sugar
Eat 30+ grams of protein for breakfast
Eat breakfast within 60 minutes of waking up
Avoid long lengths of time without food
Eat your meals on a more consistent, daily schedule instead of sporadically
Supplement with minerals in the form of sea salt, electrolyte powder, or trace mineral drops
Eat more than 3 meals, or add snacks in between
Know how long you can go after a meal before experiencing symptoms, and eat before the symptoms begin
Bring protein snacks with you in case you’re out and about during mealtime
Consider a balanced snack before bedtime
Aim to include protein and fat with every meal and snack
Sometimes simply changing your eating patterns will help rebalance your stress hormones, regulate your hunger cues, and resolve your blood sugar issues. However, various underlying factors can continue to contribute.
Addressing the role of blood sugar in your mental, emotional, and physical well-being is a critical foundation of healing. If you’re looking for individualized guidance on your healing path, apply below to work with Dr. Savannah.
If you enjoyed this post, you may like…
Anxiety and low blood sugar: a short and sweet explanation of how blood sugar levels can cause and worsen feelings of anxiety