Stress management is important for everyone, but now it is being recognized that is is particularly important for those with type 2 diabetes to follow a regular stress management routine in order to help control blood sugar levels.

In people with type 2 diabetes, the body doesn’t respond well to insulin — the hormone that removes sugar from your blood and helps get it into your cells where it can be used or stored for energy. Managing type 2 diabetes with exercise, diet, and sometimes medication usually keeps blood sugar under control, but stress can cause blood sugar levels to rise.Stress management with diabetesStress is your body’s normal response to danger. Getting a quick boost of energy from sugar helps you get out of danger, allowing you to “fight or take flight” — the human body’s natural response to stress. Everyone’s blood sugar goes up when they’re under stress, but if you have type 2 diabetes, your body has a harder time getting your blood sugar levels to go back down.”Stress isn’t all bad,” says Dinamarie C. Garcia-Banigan, MD, MPH, an endocrinologist and diabetes specialist at the Lahey Clinic in Burlington, Mass. “A little stress can help you use energy and improve concentration. But too much stress and type 2 diabetes can be a bad combination,” she says. “That’s why stress management is an important part of managing type 2 diabetes.”

via How Stress Affects Type 2 Diabetes – Type 2 Diabetes – Everyday Health.