sleep

If you read my previous post on the top three ways to prevent diabetes then you know eating healthy, exercising more, and losing weight (especially belly fat) are keys to preventing diabetes. But there are actually lesser-known actions that can help you slash your diabetes risk because they help you stick to the “top three” more effectively. In this post, I’ll describe how sleep and stress management can help prevent and control diabetes.

Manage Stress

Is it me or are most people pre-wired for high anxiety and the go-go-go mentality? Work pressures. The economy. Life drama. No matter what day it is, you can bet there’s something going on that is making your blood boil. You don’t see it, but it’s killing you.

Chronic stress is linked to six of the leading causes of death. The link between stress and diabetes is hormonal. Neuropeptide Y (NPY) is a stress hormone that increases with severe or prolonged stress. The main effect of the hormone is increased food intake, increased proportion of energy stored as fat, and decreased physical activity. Uh oh. If you read the post on preventing diabetes, you know that excess fat, especially in the belly area, significantly increases your diabetes risk.

Who here hasn’t had suffered from a food coma a time or two? Well, some history is not worth repeating. Take it from me, you can have fun, enjoy all the Thanksgiving harvest, and still fit into your jeans the next day. But how do you avoid this whole “food coma” thing? It starts with understanding what makes you feel that way. There’s a couple things going on and it’s hormonal.

Tryptophan, Serotonin and Melatonin

Tryptophan is an essential amino acid (protein building block the body cannot make). It is high in many protein rich foods, like turkey. Tryptophan helps build muscle like other amino acids, but it is also a specific precursor of serotonin. Nearly all serotonin is in the gut where it regulates GI movement, but about 20% is actually dispersed in the central nervous system (CNS) where it regulates mood, appetite, sleep, muscle contraction, and some cognitive functions including memory and learning. Some serotonin can become melatonin, which regulates your sleep/wake cycles.

According to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey, about 11 percent of Americans did not get enough “sleep or rest” on any night in the past 30 days. A little more than 30 percent said they got enough rest or sleep every night in the last month.

A quarter of those surveyed who were unemployed said they didn’t get enough rest any night in the last 30 days.

The study seems to confirm the anecdotal belief that west coasters are more laid back than the east coast. Twelve of the 14 best-sleeping states were west of the Mississippi.

The report wasn’t very in depth, as they just asked people about their perception of how much sleep they got, not the actual hours.

Being healthy isn’t all about just hitting the gym and eating right, although it helps; there is much more involved in the health equation. It is recommended that you get at least 30 to 60 minutes of exercise per day at least five days per week. I understand that exercising is a huge time commitment and that life is busy, but try to follow the recommendations the best you can.

Remember, if you are not breaking a sweat, you are not working hard enough!

So, putting exercise aside, being healthy mentally and physically requires a lot more than just getting the heart rate up. Below are 10 simple ways to a healthier you! Each of the following will help increase your energy levels and in turn, better workouts and more productive days will be the result.

It has long been thought that it’s not just what you eat but when you eat that has an effect on gaining weight. A new study reaffirms this.

Researchers fed mice a high-fat diet during the normal time they ate. Those mice gained about 20 percent of their weight over a six-week period. But, when the researchers fed other mice the same diet, but during the time that they would normally be sleeping, those mice put on 48 percent of their weight.

While these results need to be duplicated in a human study, the researchers believe that the results will be the same.