I always joke that the key to life is to balance your blood sugar.
If a client comes to me to heal their brain – whether it be to overcome depression or anxiety, improve their focus, become an ace at what they do or even heal a serious head injury – I always start by making sure their blood sugar is balanced.
Why is this so important?
Although your muscles store energy in the form of glycogen, your brain is entirely dependent on circulating blood sugar.
In fact, I can guarantee that you won’t have balanced brain chemistry until or unless your blood sugar is also balanced.
Many people are not diabetics, so they think their blood sugar is balanced.
Even if you are not a diabetic, your roller coaster blood sugar may be adversely affecting your mood and your brain chemistry and your energy.
When you miss meals or go without food for extended periods of time, signs that you may have trouble with your blood sugar include:
- A sense of weakness
- Anxiety
- Tingling in your hands
- Rapid heartbeat
- Feeling shaky or jittery
- Sudden profuse sweating and/or your skin feels clammy
- Nightmares from going to bed on an empty stomach
- Wake up at night feeling restless
- Agitation, easily upset and nervous
- Poor memory
- Forgetful
- Confused or disoriented
- Dizzy or faint
- Cold or numb
- Mild headaches or head pounding
- Blurred vision or double vision
- Feeling clumsy and uncoordinated
These are all symptoms that you tend to have problems with low blood sugar.
You may also have trouble with high blood sugar. These symptoms may include:
- Frequent urination during the day and night
- Unusual thirst – feeling like you can’t drink enough water
- Unusual hunger – feeling like you need to eat or are hungry all the time
- Vision blurs
- Feeling itchy all over
- Tingling or numbness in your feet
- Sense of drowsiness or lethargy during the day not associated with missing meals or not sleeping
- Eating starchy foods, even if they are healthy (like rice, corn, beans or oats) causes you to gain weight or prevents you from losing weight
- Sores heal slowly
- Loss of hair on your legs
Some people tend to have low blood sugar. Others tend to have high blood sugar. And another group has an oppositic condition, where they tend to swing from having high blood sugar to low blood sugar.
Whatever your blood sugar balance, realize that your brain can detect minute changes in your blood sugar – as little as 2 mg/dl or less. That means that your mood and your energy level are entirely dependent on your circulating blood sugar.
If you have any of these symptoms, set up an appointment with me and learn how you can eat to stabilize your blood sugar, your brain chemistry, your energy levels and your mood.