Have you ever felt the physical effects of stress and emotional disruption on your body? Maybe feeling tired after an emotional day or life altering event. Perhaps you've felt that whole body soreness after work meetings that make you feel like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day or spending time with someone who doesn't just push buttons—they lean on them like they’re trying to open a secret door.
Well there absolutely is a somatic relationship between our stress and our physical well being. Humans evolved to survive in the wild. Although it's questionable if most humans could survive in the wild today, our natural stress responses still exist. Our bodies are designed to release certain chemicals when we are faced with a perceived danger like a Saber tooth tiger or a Grizzly bear.
In today's human existence, threats are mostly socially driven, but they are threats to our survival nonetheless. We have to perform to a certain level at work, or our financial responsibilities are unattainable. We struggle in our personal relationships, or with difficult people in our lives.
Probably the most prominent and most impactful for Type 1 Diabetics is the concern for our health and the decision fatigue that occurs as a result of keeping ourselves alive each day. This is not to mention the stress of equipment failure, loss of insurance, access to insulin etc.
When you encounter something you perceive as a threat, whether that's a 700 pound Grizzly or a screeching glucose monitor alerting you to a low blood sugar of 38, a small area at the base of your brain called the hypothalamus activates the body’s alarm system. The resulting reaction is the same. According to the Mayo Clinic this alarm system consists of releasing chemicals, mainly Adrenaline and Cortisol. Adrenaline will raise the heart rate and blood pressure to provide quickly needed energy.
“Cortisol, the primary stress hormone, increases sugar, also called glucose, in the bloodstream, enhances the brain's use of glucose and increases the availability of substances in the body that repair tissues.”
That last one is a tricky one for those of us who lack the ability to naturally control and process those glucose levels. So to live in an environment where stress triggers the release of cortisol and therefore raises glucose levels means we are in a constant battle against our own bodies. This is what is commonly referred to as Diabetes Distress.
For those unfamiliar, a drop in blood sugar in a T1D brings on a naturally induced state of physical and mental panic. The brain and body sends out every urgent message screaming “YOU ARE DYING!” The only way to describe it is absolute terror on the inside, all while not wanting to be a burden to those around us, maintaining full self sufficiency while our brains have literally been turned off to conserve energy for the rest of the body. The illness and wretched feeling that come along with a high blood sugar feel like "suffocating from the inside out," as my T1D friend Caroline says. It lasts for hours and hours and feels like being riddled with the flu, but you also have the taste in your mouth like you just ate a roll of dirty pennies. If that's not stressful, I don't know what is. Just more reasons we as Type 1 Diabetics need to find ways to practice mindfulness and reduce our stress.
According to Diabetes Research Connection there are at least 42 different factors affecting our blood sugar levels as Type 1 Diabetics. It's not shocking to any seasoned T1D that some days a whole package of fruit flavored Mentos might correct a low sugar reading back to a “normal” range, or sometimes send it sky rocketing off into outer space and on other days it will barely make a difference.
So what do we do with this stress???
Studies ( https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35297136/ ) indicate that individuals with type 1 diabetes who participate in even short periods of mindfulness training or meditation often experience a noticeable reduction in diabetes-related stress. Additional findings suggest that mindfulness and similar meditation practices can support more thoughtful treatment choices and contribute to improved A1C levels. In fact, according to diabetesjournal.org Meta-analyses reported an average A1C reduction of approximately 0.84% from mind-body practices. That may not sound like a lot, but the difference in the long term effects between having an A1C of 6% vs. 6.84% is significant. Especially when there are so few factors that are within our control.
You may be asking, what kind of meditation or mindfulness is right for me? The answer is, there is no answer. Yes, I know that sounds like something Yoda or David Caradine's character on Kung Fu would say. For me, there are infinite paths to my inner and/or higher self. One of those is simply sitting in a beach chair looking at the ocean. It might be attending a sound bath/meditation session and letting my mind become nothing for an hour. Other days it's SCUBA diving at 130 feet underwater watching a Torpedo Ray hover above me for as long as my dive computer and air will allow.
The importance of meditation and mindfulness, however you want to define it for yourself, is a critical piece of the puzzle and integral to our diabetes treatment. It limits the release of unnecessary cortisol and reduces daily anxiety. It calms the mind, allowing us to make better decisions when reacting to blood sugar events. My favorite is that it helps with quality sleep, which we all know we can use more sleep!
There is an anonymous quote regarding meditation which says "In the midst of movement and chaos, keep stillness inside of you.” For me, one place I feel the most at home and in total peace is in the middle of a fast and loud punk rock mosh pit. It doesn't seem like the most ideal place to find one's center, however it is a place that shows me that I cannot control the entropy outside of myself, and as Marcus Aurelius said back in his day "Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul".
These are some of the methods I have found that work for me. My point is, find your own methods that help you find your peace and even for a brief moment. Find a way to shut out this hectic and chaotic world and breathe. Find a few seconds out of the day to take a deep breath and be thankful that the air brought you life. Be thankful for that screaming glucose monitor keeping you alive, when it wasn't that long ago that you and I would not have survived more than a few weeks or months with this disease.
There are countless books, articles and apps out there to help you get started with meditation. Find one that works for you or find a good group and join them. Or….. Just go outside and touch grass as the kids say!
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It's always enlightening to read about what you have to manage daily - what "norms" get to take for granted. You choose intention every day, making all the conscious decisions to choose living, at its foundation and then some! Always great getting to meditate with you, too!
My Son, nobody is prouder of you than I am (except for your Dad)! Your words instill in me the trust that you have and have to live with. I believe in you and all the good you are doing for others who have T1D. Thank you for that. In the past 4 months I have lived great grief and sorrow, but you have always known exactly what to say and do for me, that helps me out of a dark hole.
With Much Love, Mom.