Blood Sugar and Stress

Have you ever felt hangry? Is hanger a regular feeling for you? What about stressed out? Have you ever fallen into a negative thinking pattern seemingly out of nowhere where you ruminate uncontrollably on negative thoughts?

A lot of this comes from the combination of stress hormones and dysregulated blood sugar.

What Is Stress Really?

Stress is actually the mental interpretation of the action of stress hormones being released in the body. When we feel stressed out, or panicked, or anxious, what we are really feeling is the activity of cortisol, epinephrine, and norepinephrine in the brain and body.

So the math on lowering these negative emotions is actually simple: slow the release of these stress hormones and you’ll stop feeling these stressful feelings. In this module we’ll be talking all about the connection of stress hormones and blood sugar.

The Purpose of Stress Hormones

What is the point of stress hormones in the body? The point of these hormones is to maintain a level of blood glucose homeostasis. Your blood must maintain a certain level of glucose, or blood sugar, in order to perform its normal bodily functions. We call this homeostasis. This level can’t get too low or we’ll be hypoglycemic and the body doesn’t have enough glucose to perform its most basic functions.

So the point of stress hormones like cortisol is to make sure there is enough glucose in the blood to keep you alive. When your blood glucose gets too low, cortisol comes to the rescue to bump it back up and allow you to keep on surviving.

The Evolutionary Origin

Back in the day when we were hunter-gatherers, the stress response was adapted specifically for survival — the classic “running from a tiger” example. In order to run, muscles need the immediate fuel source of glucose. This is another example of the fight-or-flight sympathetic nervous system.

When our brains sensed immediate danger, the brain communicated to the adrenal glands to output stress hormones, which sent the message to our liver, muscles, stored fat, and pancreas to make glucose more readily available in the blood. With that available glucose, our muscles have energy, our vision becomes clearer, our brains become more responsive. The body is physically shuttling available energy to the extremities where it’s most needed to survive.

Types of Stress

It’s very important to know that when we talk about stress we’re not just talking about emotional stress — we’re talking about physical stress. Chemicals, pathogens, inflammation, and environmental toxicants all also contribute to stress. You could even argue that nowadays this is where much of the stress burden is coming from, considering how common chemicals from plastic, building materials, and food are in our daily lives.

The HPA Axis

This is all possible thanks to the HPA Axis. This is the communication route of stress from our brains to our adrenal glands. The hypothalamus senses a stressor, both emotional and physical, and sends a message to the pituitary gland to order up stress hormones from the adrenal glands to make blood sugar available in the body.

The HPA Axis is very sensitive to environmental and emotional stressors. In order to reduce the response of the HPA Axis, you need to reduce exposure to physical and mental stressors. Reducing physical stressors such as chemicals, toxins, and inflammation is a good place to start. This includes inflammatory foods and high-sugar foods.

The Pregnenolone Steal

It’s important to remember that when the body goes into making stress hormones, it stops making other adrenal hormones including testosterone, estrogen, pregnenolone, progesterone, and DHEA. This is known as the pregnenolone steal (some people refer to it as the cortisol steal). The body prioritizes stress hormones over hormones you need to actually thrive. Failure to make these hormones can lead to dysregulated mood, depression, and anxiety, along with fatigue and weakness.

Cortisol and the Circadian Rhythm

Is cortisol bad? Definitely not. Chronic high cortisol output is what we want to avoid. Your body is in fact programmed to release cortisol throughout the day at specific times to keep you up and running. This is managed through your circadian rhythm.

The circadian rhythm is your body’s natural clock that regulates the amount of cortisol released throughout the day. A normal circadian rhythm releases cortisol highest in the morning and then tapers off throughout the day so that come nighttime, cortisol is not being released and your body can produce enough melatonin to put you to sleep.

Many people struggle with this natural cycle and deal with dysregulated cortisol throughout the day. Maybe you struggle to get up in the morning because of low cortisol, but then feel surges of energy while trying to fall asleep at night. This is known as being “wired and tired” and is a classic symptom of adrenal fatigue.

Adrenal Fatigue

Adrenal fatigue is a combination of your HPA Axis not working correctly and your adrenal glands not having the ability to put out enough cortisol when needed throughout the day. It can happen for a number of reasons, but in our modern society it usually comes from chronic exposure to stress. It can also come from parts of the HPA Axis not working correctly, like specific medical issues tied to the hypothalamus, pituitary, or adrenal glands.

Overall, adrenal fatigue dysregulates your circadian rhythm and makes it so we don’t get enough cortisol when we need it, combined with high amounts of cortisol pumping when we don’t need it. Disruption of the circadian rhythm alone can result in depression and mood disorder. Even scarier — long-term disruption of melatonin production can be associated with cancer. Melatonin has anti-inflammatory properties. Natural melatonin, as in melatonin made in the body, can be a powerful tool while you sleep.

HPA Axis and Mental Health

All of this activation of the HPA Axis directly affects our mood and mental health. We know that chronic stress hormone exposure is tied to anxiety, ADHD, and depression. Along with emotional stress, our physical bodies also trigger stress — obese people and type 2 diabetics have higher activity of the HPA Axis and stress hormones.

So what does this all mean? It means we have to focus on stabilizing our blood sugar to keep from triggering excess cortisol and stress hormones. If we can keep from triggering excess cortisol, we might be able to help stabilize our mood. Stabilize blood sugar, stabilize mood.

Sugar and Mental Health

This is why it’s important to build a diet that is focused on lowering blood sugar swings. One of the most effective ways to stabilize blood sugar is to eat a low-sugar, low-carbohydrate diet.

In terms of mental health, sugar has been directly correlated to depression in men and women. Sugar has been tied to loss of memory and Alzheimer’s, ADHD, anxiety, and OCD. Sugar also works along the same dopamine-reward pathways as other addictive drugs, which can have an effect on mood.

Stress Eating

Stress eating is another example of the relationship between blood sugar and stress. Stress leads to cravings, and eating high-carbohydrate foods leads to more activation of stress hormones, which leads to more cravings — a vicious cycle.

Artificial Sweeteners and Bad Fats

While limiting sugar is good for controlling your body’s stress response, it’s not a good idea to replace sugar with artificial sweeteners, as these have shown evidence of negative effects on mental health. Studies on aspartame have shown participants experience more irritable mood, more depression, and overall cognitive decline, along with lower levels of serotonin and anxiety and withdrawal effects.

The same goes for bad fats like seed oils, canola oils, and vegetable oils, as these oils also directly trigger the HPA Axis.

Strategies to Stabilize Blood Sugar

Knowing how powerful sugar is, controlling intake is easier said than done, but it’s very possible. To control sugar intake you have to control sugar cravings.

A good way to eliminate sugar and sugar cravings is to add more fat and protein into your diet, especially in the morning. This will help stop the glycemic roller coaster of sugar cravings. Eat a breakfast with at least 30 grams of protein and make sure there is fat. Eggs, bacon, sausage, and protein shakes without fruit, stevia, or added sugar are good places to start.

Avoid caffeine before breakfast and at least two hours after eating breakfast. Also be sure to avoid caffeine after 12pm, as this can trigger late afternoon cortisol surges which throw off your circadian rhythm and can lead to more sugar cravings.

Adaptogenic Herbs

Things you can do to stabilize stress hormone output is to try adaptogenic herbs like Rhodiola, ashwagandha, Schisandra, Cordyceps, licorice root, and holy basil.

Vitamins and Supplements

Vitamins that are good include Vitamin A, Vitamin C, and B-vitamins — specifically B1, B2, B3, B6, and B12. Get plenty of good quality magnesium, preferably in glycinate or threonate form.

Phosphatidylserine is another supplement that works directly to regulate the HPA Axis and lower your stress response.

Berberine, chromium, and GABA have all been shown to lower and control blood sugar. It’s best to look for these nutrients in some kind of preformulated supplement. Plenty of companies make great preformulated adrenal, stress, and blood sugar blends.

Avoid taking these vitamins individually as you can overdose and throw off functions of your body. Always consult your doctor before implementing any supplement into your diet.

Lifestyle Practices

It’s also very important to include rest, movement, and breathing in your stress-reducing regimen. Make sure you’re getting enough sleep. Exercise regularly and incorporate a mix of resistance training, calming exercise, and any other form of movement that you enjoy. Breathing, meditation, yoga, or some kind of mindfulness practice is also incredibly helpful in dealing with stress.