Can stress or anxiety lower your blood glucose level?
ANSWER: Hi there, Every person has to know how to live a normal life, without having elevated blood pressure or high blood glucose concentration. Because of this fact, he/she has to know how the emotions are affecting his/her organism. When you are stressed or nervous, your brain thinks that there is something dangerous which is coming ahead. Because of this, a preparation for fight begins and this preparation is characterized by elevated secretion of the stress hormones- adrenalin and noradrenalin. These hormones are secreted by the suprarenal glands and they are elevating the concentration of glucose in your blood. This elevation is observed, because the probable fight may require a lot of energy, provided by the glucose. In addition, when you are under chronic stress, you have permanent elevation of the glucose concentration in your blood, because of the stress hormones. This elevation and the fight preparation are protective mechanism from the ancient times. However, today in the modern society they are causing problems like developing diabetes in the future, when you are under a lot of stress. In purpose to avoid diabetes and other chronic conditions caused by stress, you are supposed to find a way to handle with stress. I understand that this is not something easy, but most people are beating stress by finding a hobby or another way to calm down. You should think about this, because, after all, you have only one life to live. Hope it helped! Dr.Alba |