Trick or treat! Give me something sugary to eat!
 
Halloween is just around the corner, which means the annual influx of extra treats into the house that are laden with sugar! Now I am not saying we need to do away with sugar altogether. In fact, if we had no sugar at all we would have some serious problems on our hands. However, we aren’t lacking sugar, we are drowning in it.

The rates of obesity, heart disease, diabetes and various other serious health problems are on the rise. Stats Canada has estimated about two thirds of Canadian adults and one third of children are overweight or obese.  A major contributor to these health issues is poor eating habits, especially excess sugar. To further compound the problem, even when people are trying to make healthy choices it isn’t easy to do so. Presently, there are 56 different names for sugar, and manufacturers are not required to group them together on nutrition labels.

This is fine when we have a good balance of fuel coming in, but what happens if there’s too much?  When we have too much sugar in our blood, it needs to be stored away for when it’s needed, so the body converts the sugar into glycogen. However, like any storage unit we can only put so much away.  So what happens with the excess that doesn’t fit? This is where problems can start. An important hormone that helps keep sugar in balance is insulin. Whenever sugar is detected by specialized cells in the pancreas, insulin is released. Think of insulin like a key to a door, in order for sugar to enter into most cells they need the key (insulin) to unlock the front door and let them in. Insulin is vital to making sure that we do not become hyperglycemic (too much sugar) or hypoglycemic (too low sugar).  Conditions like Type II diabetes result from the cells becoming insensitive to insulin. Think of a toddler who keeps asking for the same thing over and over again, eventually you get tired of hearing them so you start to tune them out or stop responding to them altogether. Diabetes is probably the most well known to be affected by blood sugar levels, but it’s not the only one. Other conditions that are affected by blood glucose levels include: PCOS, ADD/ADHD, Autism, certain cancers, and so on. We don’t have time to go into all these conditions today, the point I want to make by mentioning them is that the correct balance of blood sugar is very important to our overall health and influencing various health conditions.

Exercise
Two, is exercise! We’ve all heard time and time again how important exercise is for our health and this is no exception. Even a short 20-30 min moderate pace walk most days of the week can make a big difference. For many other reasons, it’s good to balance out cardio and resistance training accordingly, but I want to just touch on why walking is enough to do a lot of good. There are receptors in our muscles call Glut 4 receptors and they are seriously hungry for sugars. Think of turning on the vacuum, and how that powerful vortex just sucks up all the dirt in site in no time, but if it’s switched off and in the corner it’s doing you no good. When Glut 4 receptors are activated, they suck up sugars much like the vacuum, but only when activated. The quads, these big muscles on the front of your legs, house a lot of Glut 4 receptors. Research shows even just 30 secs of squats will significantly activate Glut 4 receptors in the quads and can drop glucose levels by almost a full point on the glucose monitor.

Stress Less!
Finally, get your stress under control as best as you can. As many of us know, too much stress isn’t good for our health, and stress is very integral to blood sugar levels. If we have heightened stress, then our body is preparing for fight or flight mode. If you decided to run, you’re going to need fuel on the ready to help you run away from that threat. That’s fine if we were still running away from saber-tooth tiger, or a tiger in general, but the problem is most situations that cause us stress these days, we can’t simply run away from. Use meditation, use exercise, use whatever strategies necessary to moderate your stress, because all that free sugar floating around in your bloodstream not being used is going to eventually lead to problems.

Do you consider yourself to be stressed?
Based on the stats, most of you do!

In 2010, slightly more than 1 in 4 Canadian workers described their day-to-day lives as highly stressful. This proportion is about the same as reported earlier in the decade. Persistently high levels of stress among so many in the workforce presents a challenge to both employers and to the health care system.

Over time, employers lose produc­tivity to stress through absenteeism, reduced work output, and increased disability claims. Mental health problems alone are estimated to cost employers about $20 billion annually and account for over three-quarters of short-term disability claims in Canada.

What Does the Stress Response Look Like?
 
That’s a lot of stressed out people! We talk about stress, at least in passing quite often, but what does the ‘Stress Response’ look like? Here’s how our brains interpret stress:

1. A stressor is sensed by the body, sending a signal to the brain, which sounds the alarm for the body that something is happening.
2. This signal is sent to the hypothalamus otherwise known as the ‘master gland’, which then activates the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS). The ANS has control over most major organs: lungs, heart, stomach, glands and blood vessels.
3. The ANS is further broken down into two branches: Sympathetic and Parasympathetic. The Sympathetic is often referred to as the ‘fight or flight’ response, whereas Parasympathetic is responsible for ‘rest and digest’.
4. When we’re stressed, the ANS is going to trigger the Sympathetic branch, releasing noradrenaline, which results in enhanced muscular strength, increased heart rate and breakdown and use of sugar and fat for energy.

Hundreds of years ago this was a good thing because this increase in energy would allow us to run away from a threat like a hungry tiger trying to eat us. However, today’s stressors are often not so easy to run away from, like an angry boss yelling at us.  The underlying problem here is that the brain doesn’t distinguish between your boss and the tiger. To your brain, they’re both the same thing.
 
Think of revving up the engine of a racecar in anticipation of the start flag dropping, and then just before it drops, the blocks are stuck under the wheels so when you hit the gas you’re stuck in place. So you’re spinning your wheels, getting nowhere, but you’re still using gas and burning rubber. What do you think this will result in? Well eventually you’re going to run out of gas or your tires will be so worn down their practically non-existent. In terms of your body, eventually your adrenaline will run out and your body will crash, in extreme circumstances this is what we would call burnout.
 
Even before we reach burnout, we’re still doing considerable damage to our bodies. Another troublesome hormone that’s upregulated at this time is cortisol. Chronically elevated levels of cortisol interfere with learning and memory, lower immune function, increased blood pressure, increase risk for mental illness, and lower life expectancy.

5 things that can help keep stress under control:

1. Exercise: A little bit of cardio goes a long way. Just 20-30 minutes of activity most days of the week pays huge dividends. If running or working out at the gym isn’t your thing that’s ok, any form of activity that activates the muscles: walking, swimming, yoga, tai chi, etc. will have similar benefits in this respect.

2. Meditation or prayer: Simply taking a few deep breaths engages the Vagus nerve, which triggers a signal within your nervous system to slow your heart rate, lower blood pressure and decreases cortisol. The next time you feel yourself in a stressful situation that activates your ‘Fight-or-Flight’ response take 10 deep breaths and feel your entire body relax and decompress.
 
3. Social interaction: Researchers at Johns Hopkins established that elevated levels of cortisol in adolescence change the expression of numerous genes linked to mental illness. In effect causing severe mental illness in those teens predisposed to it. However, when these same teens interacted with their peers in a social context, their cortisol levels dropped, as did their risk for mental illness.
 
4. Sleep: Getting enough sleep every day means that cortisol levels rise and fall in sync with your circadian rhythms, which is the overall function of your body in a 24 hour period. When you lose sleep, or are sleep deprived on a regular basis this can have a detrimental impact on your cortisol levels and hence your overall stress.
 
5. Laughing: They weren’t kidding when they said that laughter is the best medicine. Dr. William Fry, an American psychiatrist who has been studying the benefits of laughter for the past 30 years, has found links to laughter and lowered levels of stress hormones.
 

Now, these are by no means the only things that can help decrease stress. Other important factors like your diet and lifestyle, such as allowing yourself to relax and do things you enjoy, can have a huge impact as well. If you find that dealing with stress from day to day is truly too overwhelming for you, it might be a good idea to speak with a trained professional, like a counselor or your Naturopath. However you deal with stress, make sure it’s a strategy that works for you, because at the end of the day the only one who can control your stress levels, is you!