Millions of years of evolution have created all kinds of automatic biological processes within us that allow our bodies to run on automatic pilot for a good portion of our day. Most of the time, these automatic involuntary processes and behaviors make our lives easier and help to keep us alive.
We don’t have to instruct our heart to continue beating or remind our lungs to keep inhaling and exhaling air. Our bodies carry out those processes automatically.
We can expect that one of our hands will quickly and instinctually rise to shield our face without thinking if we perceive an object moving towards it.
We don’t have to consciously think about moving our feet one step at a time when we want to walk from one room to the next. All we need to do is decide which room we want to go to and our subconscious brains will put our legs in motion in the right direction on automatic pilot.
While most of the time these automatic processes make our lives a lot easier (imagine how exhausting it would be to keep reminding yourself to breathe or to keep telling your heart to keep beating), they can, unfortunately, cause us problems.
We already know that our instinctual fight-or-flight response is triggered when we’re faced with physical danger. If you’re standing at an ATM withdrawing cash and someone comes up from behind you and sticks a gun in your back, you are most definitely going to be experiencing many of the physiological reactions of a fight-or-flight response. Your heart will beat rapidly, your breathing will be labored, and your body may be trembling out of fear.
These physiological reactions serve us well when we need to take sudden action in the face of an emergency, but when they are triggered and activated when our bodies don’t actually need them, they can adversely affect our health and well being.
The three stress hormones that these types of fight-or-flight events trigger are adrenaline, norepinephrine, and cortisol. They can all be extremely helpful and life-saving when you need to outrun a lion, but they don’t serve you very well if this surge of hormones occur when you’re lying in bed stressing out about the next day’s meeting with your boss.
This surge of hormones can raise your heart rate, blood pressure, breathing rate, and your blood sugar, even when you don’t need the extra boost of energy to avoid danger or protect yourself.
And because these physiological reactions have been developed over millions of years of evolution and have become part of our biological makeup, we don’t have much control over keeping them in check. These physiological responses are going to happen whether you want them to or not.
For those of us trying to maintain healthy levels of blood sugar, one physiological process that may also have evolved over millions of years, from the days of our prehistoric ancestors having to wake up and move quickly to hunt for food or escape becoming some animal’s meal, is the “Dawn Phenomenon.”
This term refers to a physiological process that results in an overnight spike in blood glucose and a release of other hormones, such as cortisol and glucagon, overnight, usually from around 2 a.m. to 8 a.m.
Diabetics trying hard to control their blood sugar levels can often become frustrated because it can feel like no matter what they do, they continue to see higher blood sugar readings in the mornings. These higher than expected blood sugar levels soon after getting out of bed can oftentimes be a result of the “Dawn Phenomenon,” not a result of anything in terms of a poor diet or lack of exercise.
Due to the liver dumping out glucose in the wee hours of the morning to prepare you for the day ahead with added energy, it’s a process that runs automatically, seemingly unaffected by diet or exercise.
For many diabetics, the process can be frustrating because many times, despite our best efforts to watch what we eat and stay active, we can still wake up to higher than normal blood sugar levels.
Despite the automatic nature of the Dawn Phenomenon, you aren’t totally helpless in combatting it. There are a few things you can try and experiment with.
Fighting Back Against the Dawn Phenomenon
You can try reducing the amount of carbohydrates you consume in the evening. Replace those chips with some vegetables and see if there is any positive effect when you check your blood sugar the next morning.
Instead of flopping onto the couch after dinner and turning on the TV, take a brisk walk around the block. You might be surprised what kind of effect this will have on your blood sugar when you wake up the next day.
Our bodies are all different and what might work for one person may not work for another. So keep tweaking what and when you eat and when and how you exercise. You may happen to discover what works best for you.
While we are up against millions of years of evolution and physiological processes that seem to run on their own automatically, we can still try to manage them by paying close attention to how our bodies respond to various foods and exercises.
The battle against diabetes is never over, but learning more about how it operates and how our bodies respond to a variety of diets and exercise, is the starting point to gaining more control over our diabetes.
References:
https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-the-fight-or-flight-response-2795194
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/diabetes/expert-answers/dawn-effect/faq-20057937
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/diabetes/expert-answers/dawn-effect/faq-20057937
