Readjusting Your Sleep to Stave Off Type 2 Diabetes

There are plenty of studies that support the idea that certain lifestyle habits can ward off the development of type 2 diabetes. One of these habits is making sure that you get the right amount of sleep.

When you don’t get enough sleep, it can cause metabolic problems. When you make sure that you get plenty of sleep during the week as well as on the weekend, you not only lower your risk of getting diabetes, but you can ward it off completely.

The problem is that most people live such hectic lives that one of the first things they give up in order to get everything done is sleep. Things happen that we don’t plan to happen.

We forget something that’s due the next morning. Or we have to take care of something a child or other family member needs and before we realize it, it’s the wee hours of the morning and we’re still not in bed yet.

You might be fully aware that you need to get more sleep than you do. But life isn’t perfect and we all do whatever it is that we have to do to make sure we get stuff taken care of.

But losing sleep really is one of the worst things that you can do to your body. Whenever sleep is lost, regardless of how fit you are or what your weight is - you can develop prediabetes - the forerunner for diabetes.

Then if you continue to go on with that lack of enough sleep, you’ll end up getting diabetes. That means that even if you don’t have a family history of the disease, you can still end up with it - all because of a lack of sleep.

The first thing that begins to happen when you don’t get enough sleep is that your fatty acid levels rise. At the same time, your cells start balking at the insulin and your body stays in this heightened state of resistance for hours.

This is the first step that leads to insulin resistance. Then, a lack of sleep affects your hormones and you end up getting a surge of cortisol. This hormone is what’s known as the stress hormone.

Sleep deprivation can accumulate and the toll that it takes on your body and your organs will eventually show up in your endocrine system in areas of your pancreas and your cells.

By losing sleep, you cause your cells to become insulin resistant and the sensitivity your body has in using insulin is diminished. Not getting enough sleep limits the way that your body moves glucose out of your bloodstream and studies have shown that when you make up the sleep that you’ve lost, your body is able to handle the glucose.

Most people get six hours of sleep or less every weekday and because they feel okay on that little sleep, especially if it’s a habit they’ve had for years, they continue to do it. They don’t realize that the lack of enough sleep is silently paving the way for diabetes to begin.

Maybe you’re at the point where you absolutely can’t add hours to your sleep routine. That’s okay. You don’t have to add hours all at once. When you add just a little bit more time to your sleep schedule, you can lower your odds of being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.

If you’re someone who routinely sleeps six hours, simply adding a half an hour can significantly lower your chances of getting or reversing the disease. In a study done on adults who didn’t have any problems with the way that their body used insulin, participants were deprived of sleep and then their insulin sensitivity checked.

It was found to be worse after losing sleep - but once the participants were able to get the sleep that their body needed, the insulin sensitivity returned to normal. There has been a lot of advice that spread about that people shouldn’t attempt to catch up on missed sleep during the week by sleeping more on the weekends.

The advice says that by sleeping more, you throw off your body’s sleep schedule and that you should continue the same sleep habits that you have during the week. But this is bad advice.

It’s actually a good thing to sleep extra on the weekends. By sleeping more hours on the weekend, you allow your body to catch up on the missed sleep and you improve your body’s ability to handle insulin.

This helps you stave off type 2 diabetes. There are some steps that you can take to make sure that you readjust your sleep to prevent diabetes. You have to make getting enough sleep a priority.

If you can’t change the time that you have to get up every morning, you can change the time that you go to bed. It’s tempting to stay up later than we should, especially after a difficult work day, and unwind by watching television.

It’s always best to get at least 7 hours of sleep. Anything less than 6 hours is sleep deprivation. There are different things that you can do to make sure that you get the sleep you need to prevent getting type 2 diabetes.

Besides making sure that you go to bed in plenty of time to get at least 7 hours of sleep, keep your bedroom as a haven for sleep. Don’t use the room for anything that can cause you to feel stressed.

Don’t use your laptop in bed, don’t use your phone to check social media and don’t read, watch or discuss anything that upsets you right before bed. Make sure the temperature in your room is conducive to sleep.

A room that’s too hot or too cold can make getting to sleep and staying asleep more difficult. Be sure that your bed is comfortable and that you have comfortable linens. If you have noisy neighbors or live in an area where noise is a problem, you can get a white noise machine to help drown out the sounds that might keep you from falling asleep.

You can use lined, room darkening curtains to help make sure the lights from outside or the moonlight stays out of your bedroom so that you can sleep. If you’ve been losing sleep, don’t wait another evening to take action so that you can prevent or reverse diabetes.