Staying up late towards midnight and beyond.
Have you ever stayed up really late and the next day you feel like you have a hangover and you didn’t have alcohol? Well, that’s blood sugar that was not stored properly. We are all innately gifted with an internal clock, so we know what time it is without ever knowing the actual time, remarkable huh. This clock that I refer to is called our Circadian Clock, also known as a Circadian Rhythm. This is why we wake up at certain times and sleep at certain times, hormones are also activated at certain times etc. Shift work/overnight work is the worst for our circadian clock and is a possible carcinogen (possible cancer causing). The take home message is to get prime sleep at the optimal time daily.
Blue Light.
This one thing many of us are guilty of is staring at a device past sundown. Blue light informs our brain that there is still daylight present, so the hormone melatonin becomes suppressed. If you do need to be on your device after dark then wearing blue blocking glasses is a must to help regulate blood sugar and hormones. Just try to get to bed as soon as you can after.
Excess stress.
Stress should be acute and dealt with shortly after the stressor to bring our bodies back into homeostasis. Sometimes that’s not what happens. Instead we dwell on stress for long periods and are negatively affected by the outcomes. Not resolving stress efficiently and immediately leads to blood sugar Imbalances and further degradation.
Chronic low-grade inflammation.
Many of us barely notice this one. We mostly get a feeling - you know, that 6th sense feeling - that something is off. This can and will zap energy and elevate blood sugar before we ever clue in. Addressing inflammation at its root cause is essential to reducing inflammation.
The Dawn Phenomenon.
This is an increase in blood sugar from the liver that starts before sunrise. This occurs naturally to us all and helps us with energy and motivation to get our day started. For some of us this system can become dysregulated (whether too much sugar or not enough insulin), which may lead to further issues. How well we handle the increase of blood sugar depends on our current state of health. But of course we have an option of healthy nutrition and lifestyle habits that we can adopt in order to work with this system to our benefit and not have it control our cravings for sugary products.