There are increasing links between insomnia and diabetes. Even if you don’t end up with diabetes, lack of sleep can still affect your blood sugar levels. Anything less than 6 hours of sleep per night is considered a sleep deficit. The modern American lifestyle invites you to skimp on your sleep, but that may lead to future health issues – not just insomnia.
Lack of Sleep Increases Stress
Stress is linked to many health issues that range from heart disease to diabetes. Meditation, yoga and other stress relief methods can be effective in helping you calm down, but none are as good for your body as sleep. Sleep truly allows your body to rest and repair itself. So you can see why it so important to get a solid night’s sleep because it helps to de-stress the body, keeping your blood sugar levels in the healthy range.
Affects Insulin Sensitivity
For starters, it affects your insulin sensitivity and raises your risk of prediabetes. When your body is not well rested, it has more difficulty in maintaining blood glucose levels. People who sleep less are at high risk of becoming obese too.
Affects Glucose Tolerance
Studies have shown that people who are sleep deprived have a lower glucose tolerance. If you’re wondering what glucose tolerance is, it’s the body’s ability to absorb glucose or sugar after you absorb it. If your body doesn’t absorb the sugar well, there will be an increased out of insulin by the body and the excess glucose in your system will be stored as fat, which raises your risk of diabetes. You really don’t want that.
Impacts Glucose Metabolism
The glucose in your body is stored as glycogen. When your body lacks sleep, it has a harder time metabolizing the glycogen for its energy needs. This makes it less sensitive to insulin and raises your risk of diabetes. If you already have diabetes, it’ll make it harder to manage your blood sugar levels. By now you’ll realize just how important sleep is. They often say that “The amount of sleep required by the average person is five minutes more.” This is very true. If you often find yourself struggling to wake up for work, you need to sleep earlier.
Continuously hitting the snooze button is a sign that your body lacks sleep. Either that or you hate your job… or both. But all levity aside, it’s important that you be aware if you’re getting enough sleep. Are you waking up feeling refreshed or are you groggy?
If you have interrupted sleep often, it’s best to see a doctor and get a proper diagnosis. You may have sleep apnea or some other sleeping disorder that requires treatment.
Try to establish a fixed sleeping pattern by going to bed at the same time and waking at the same time every day. Avoid consuming caffeine or exercising 5 hours before bedtime.
Make sure your bedroom is cool and it’s dark. Your brain will only secrete melatonin when it’s dark. Avoid working from your bed or watching TV from there. The mind needs to associate the bed with sleep and not work/activity.
Do what you can to get sufficient sleep. You may need to sacrifice your late-night Netflix binge watching or partying over the weekends to get enough sleep, but it will be one of the best things that you can do to prevent diabetes.