In the 21st century, stress isn’t much of an option. It’s more of how much stress does your life throw your way. We live such a fast paced life that stress is more of a byproduct and we have various spheres to juggle such as social, work, a family with each one having complications of its own. You come under stress when your body basically functions as if it were under attack. This can be of two types – physical such as injuries or illnesses or mental such as at the workplace or the usual factor, marriage! While stress causes a lot of problems and discomfort, it has shown to cause memory loss in some cases and lead to diabetes and the worsening of diabetics in the long run. Let’s see if that checks out.
Mental stress often raises the blood sugar levels, which basically spikes the amount of glucose in the blood. It can be long term or short term, but the problem is that even if its short term, the hormones that are released to cope with stress stay turned on for longer, and cause the blood glucose levels to stay high for a long time. It can be something as dangerous as a traffic jam or as mind-numbing as a nagging boss or even an old parent to take care of. The hormones are pumped generously to deal with this and they won’t really stop since the enemy here is nothing but the person's mind. Iy is detrimental to people with diabetes, as they forget to plan their meals and check blood sugar levels constantly. They try to cope with the issues and this disease raises the blood sugar levels directly. In type 1 diabetes both mental and physical stress can cause the spike whereas in type 2 it’s the mental stress which causes a sure shot spike in the blood sugar levels and can be detrimental to the patient. It’s easy to check whether the mental stress is affecting the levels or not and can be measured.
Besides this, it also hampers memory. Can’t remember where you kept your money? Blame it on the stress! But no, seriously stress and depression hamper one’s mindset and thinking and make it difficult to focus and concentrate and remember things since there’s so much playing on your mind.
Breathing exercises, meditation, soothing music, and exercise can all be your outlets and release the stress from your life but more importantly, you need to take a deep breath and look at the bigger picture, and replace the bad thoughts and negativity with good productive ones!