Can Blood Sugar Levels Be Lowered with Mindfulness?

Diabetes is definitely a serious problem. Only in the U.S more than 30 million people have been diagnosed with diabetes and much more suffer from it but do not know it. The figure becomes more frightening when taken into account the number of Americans suffering from what is called “prediabetes,” which is around 85 million. All these people have higher blood sugar levels than what is considered normal and are more likely to develop diabetes in the future.

Most of the time, suffering from diabetes leads to having to follow a strict dietary regime for the rest of one’s life. In the worst scenario, the rise in blood sugar caused by diabetes can trigger other serious problems increasing the risk of having a heart attack, delaying the healing process of small wounds and even cause blindness.

However, managing a chronic condition such as diabetes is not a simple task, most people, in order to live with this condition and prevent it from worsening, require to change their lifestyle completely. Having diabetes in the U.S is a real challenge given the poor quality of the food eaten regularly. A country that is known for consuming too much fast food and drinks that contain too much sugar is not exactly the kind of diet that benefits someone suffering from diabetes.

Other aspects of the standard lifestyle Americans have are not beneficial at all for the condition. Having low physical activity rates and being overweight or obese are both very important factors that increase the chance of suffering from diabetes. 

Participation of the mind in controlling diabetes

In the same way, it happens with most, not to say all, chronic conditions; experts are constantly looking for innovative ways to treat it and looking for a definite solution. This time, a journal called Obesity was first to publish that a group of overweight women was able to reduce the blood sugar level thanks to mindfulness-based therapies.

Although the importance of mindfulness has demonstrated to be a good way to lower the levels of stress, its results regarding the ability to help lower blood sugar levels were still to be proven. It has already been stated that mindfulness may also help avoid triggering diabetes at first.

Changes in the group were evaluated 8 weeks after the program had started, the program was called “Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MSBR).” The first weeks were spent teaching participants how to cope with stress in a daily basis through ways such as meditation and paying special attention to their breathing. 

Also, there was another group being evaluated with a process more focused on educating participants and teaching them exercises, dietary changes that were required by the new lifestyle they needed to acquire in order to keep the condition under control.

Both groups were submitted to evaluations and both of them saw the benefits of the treatment. Two of the signs that both processes displayed were the lowering of mental distress and a decrease in sleep-related issues.