Having diabetes means that there is too much sugar (glucose) in your blood. Your blood always has some sugar in it because your body needs it for energy. But too much glucose in the blood is not good for your health.
Studies show that getting enough sleep is important for improving and maintaining good health. Researchers believe that certain processes necessary for repairing the body occur at best or only during sleep.
Getting too little sleep means missing important cycles that help restore memory and ensure the ability to concentrate, accurately perform motor skills, and stabilize emotions.
Diabetes and sleep problems often go hand in hand. Diabetes can cause sleep loss, and there's evidence that not sleeping well can increase your risk of developing diabetes.
Jeffrey Bauman, MD, is here to discuss the importance of getting a good nights sleep as a way to keep your Diabetes under control or help prevent it altogether.
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The Relationship Between Sleep and Diabetes
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Learn more about Jeffrey Bauman, MD
Jeffrey Bauman, MD
Jeffrey Bauman, MD, is accredited in thyroid ultrasound and ultrasound-guided fine-needle aspiration (FNA) biopsy. In addition, he is a certified clinical densitometrist. Dr. Bauman notes, "Before becoming a physician, I practiced pharmacy for 5 years. My experience helped me better understand and anticipate what patients go through after they get a prescription." Dr. Bauman is featured in New Jersey Monthly "Top Doctors" listings.Learn more about Jeffrey Bauman, MD
Transcription:
The Relationship Between Sleep and Diabetes
Melanie Cole (Host): What is the relationship between sleep and diabetes? Research has shown that sleeping an average of five hours or less can increase your risk for Type II diabetes but many Americans get poor sleep because we lead such stressful lives. My guest today is Dr. Jeff Bauman. He’s an endocrinologist at Summit Medical Group and a practitioner at SMG’s Diabetes Live Well Program. Welcome to the show, Dr. Bauman. Let’s start with sleep before we get on to stress. How important is sleep to our overall health and what is that relationship that it might have to diabetes?
Dr. Jeff Bauman (Guest): Thank you very much for having me on the show, Melanie. Sleep is extremely important. Research has shown that with sleep deprivation, that increases the risk of many health issues including increasing weight with obesity, risk of cardiovascular disease and, specifically, diabetes which we’ll focus on today. It’s an interesting parallel because with sleep deprivation, we know that insulin resistance, which is the underlying cause of the most common type of diabetes – which is Type II – insulin resistance increases with sleep deprivation. Thus, our blood sugars are higher when we’re sleep deprived. But, it’s not just that. When we’re sleep deprived, many of us make less healthy choices when we’re sleep deprived because we’re looking for energy, so we go to the unhealthy quick choices. We are often too tired to stick with our exercise program, which is kind of a double-whammy with diabetes and with weight. Yes, definitely, sleep is important. The amount of sleep that everyone needs is really individualized. Some people need as little as maybe six hours. Some people need eight or ten hours. Finding that right balance for you is really important.
Melanie: If people are not getting enough sleep and we are such a stressed out society with the electronics and rushing around and getting everything done and everything needs to be done just right now. What do you tell people, Dr. Bauman, is your most important advice of balancing that?
Dr. Bauman: That’s a great question and it really is about balance. I always refer back to the four basic pillars of health. We always think of nutrition and exercise as being the most important but they’re only two of the four pillars. The other two are stress and sleep which is what we’re talking about. It’s not so much getting any one of the pillars perfect, it’s about getting the balance to be just right for you. As you said, a lot of us do feel like we’re under a lot of stress and many of us find the easiest thing that we can do is to take away our sleep to get everything done but we can be much more efficient during the day and manage our health better when we have better sleep. The primary goal for sleep is to restore. When we get restorative sleep, we do healthier things, we feel better, we’re more alert. We do less unhealthy things and, ultimately, our health is better. The most important thing, I think, is we feel our best. In terms of the electronics, it’s interesting that there is a lot of push as we have become a very electronic age, a lot of us use our electronic devices at night time which has been shown to negatively affect our sleep. There are simple things that we can do at night. Sleep hygiene is the term that we would use in terms of the routine that we do at night really does get ourselves ready to get into that restorative sleep. Turning off the electronics at a certain hour. Studies have shown that just turning the TV off at 10:00 at night will improve sleep cycles in many Americans. Interestingly, a lot of people use these smart phones and the newest things that are coming out is they have actually changed the coloring of the smart phone so that it’s less affecting our sleep in a negative way. It’s more of a yellow tone. Things like that actually will improve your sleep. When you wake up in the morning and you see a better blood sugar and you feel better, you’ll know you’re on the right track.
Melanie: Does lack of sleep, and/or stress, can that mimic insulin resistance?
Dr. Bauman: Absolutely. Studies have definitely shown that with poor sleep and with increasing stress, those two factors do contribute to increasing insulin resistance. The primary job of insulin is to utilize glucose, which is blood sugar, better. When insulin doesn’t work well, we call that insulin resistance. Blood sugars are higher. Many of us deal with stress whether it be physical, mental or a combination thereof, we know that stress definitely increases hormones that will increase insulin resistance. We think of the fight or flight – an animal that’s in danger--the hormones like epinephrine and cortisol rise. That is trying to get increased blood sugar so that the animal can have energy to get away from the danger. When we’re under stress, that’s happening all the time. People know it when they’re going through a significant illness or there is a major stress, really even small stresses have been shown to increasing these hormones. As patients check their blood sugars I tell them, “Listen, you have a great tool to correlate your stress with your blood sugars.” I tell people that when they check their blood sugar, just make a little note next to the blood sugar when you write it down in your blood sugar log. Make a note of one to ten what your stress level is at that moment, right next to your blood sugar. People see a pattern of the higher the stress level that they indicate, the higher the blood sugars often are. If you can focus on how to improve how we manage stress, you’re ultimately going to see improvement in your blood sugars, but, as I mentioned before, improvement in your overall health and wellbeing.
Melanie: Dr. Bauman, I want to talk about stress reduction techniques, especially for diabetes, but we’ve seen this link, and people keep hearing about it in the media, between obesity and lack of sleep and then, of course, Type II diabetes being one of the risks of obesity and comorbidities. Where does melatonin levels fit into that? Can a diabetic who’s having trouble sleeping take a melatonin supplement? Is there a correlation there at all?
Dr. Bauman: Sure. There are all of these association studies in terms of when trying to determine, why is it that when we’re under stress and we’re overweight, why is it that it does affect our sleep cycle? There’s not going to be probably one answer. I think there are going to be multiple factors. Each one factor may have a small or larger role but I think it’s going to be multifactorial. Melatonin is, obviously, linked with sleep. We all know melatonin has often been recommended for jet lag and a short-term sleep aid which, it does work. When people take it in a short-term way, it does work. Whether or not that is the only issue or the only answer, I don’t think that’s going to be the case. I do believe that we were built to not have to take supplements and drugs but when needed, I think it can be useful to get people back on track. The idea is to get a better balance of sleep, stress, eating and exercise. I think when we find that balance, all four will improve. We’re not talking about for just a few months. We’re talking about for life. Because health and diabetes is for life, it’s not just for a few months.
Melanie: What about stress reduction techniques? What do you like to tell your patients about whether yoga, exercise, massage, acupuncture--any of these things--to help relieve some of that stress and anxiety that we all feel?
Dr. Bauman: It’s so important to make a note that stress is how you feel about stress around you. These are external factors that many of us face but it’s how our bodies and our minds manage the stress. That’s what ultimately causes the higher blood sugars and the higher blood pressure and so forth. Finding techniques to manage that better is really individualized. Some people definitely find benefit with yoga and relaxation techniques. Many people find exercise is a great stress relief. Not only does it “burn off the stress” and allows us to refocus on our health, but ultimately doing, of course, exercise is going to have additional benefits with lowering blood sugar and blood pressure and getting us to sleep better. Exercise is definitely linked with good sleeping habits. But, really, you’ve got to find what works for you. Definitely, talking with someone – a friend or family--to kind of unload some of the stress that they may be keeping inside. Some people see a cognitive behavioral therapist. I think that’s a great idea for many patients as a short-term way to help to manage and learn how to manage stress. Because, again, it’s not so much the trigger - although certainly some triggers are worse than others in terms of stress - it’s how we respond. When we take what might be a negative stress and we turn it more into a positive outlay, that’s certainly going to make us better. I think of a bad winter storm and many people get all stressed about that. But, if we think about what are the positive things we can do? We can light a fire. We can make Smores with the kids. There are a lot of different things we can do to turn negative things into more positive energy. That’s going to ultimately help us live healthier lives.
Melanie: Such absolutely great advice and what a great way to wrap it up. Why should people come – diabetics specifically – to Summit Medical Group for their care?
Dr. Bauman: The key is that you mention team. It’s not just about one provider. I’m only one spoke in the wheel of the diabetes health team. It does require a team. At the center at the team, of course, is the patient. Patients that take ownership of their health and get engaged with their health are going to end up being the most successful with managing their health. The players they have on their team, certainly their providers. They’ve got nurse educators, they’ve got diabetes educators, as well, we have medical assistants. We have an entire team dedicated to providing the resources and the guidance to help patients make healthier choices and ultimately live healthier, longer lives.
Melanie: Thank you so much, Dr. Bauman, for being with us. It’s great information. You’re listening to SMG Radio and for more information you can go to SummitMedicalGroup.com. That’s SummitMedicalGroup.com. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening.
The Relationship Between Sleep and Diabetes
Melanie Cole (Host): What is the relationship between sleep and diabetes? Research has shown that sleeping an average of five hours or less can increase your risk for Type II diabetes but many Americans get poor sleep because we lead such stressful lives. My guest today is Dr. Jeff Bauman. He’s an endocrinologist at Summit Medical Group and a practitioner at SMG’s Diabetes Live Well Program. Welcome to the show, Dr. Bauman. Let’s start with sleep before we get on to stress. How important is sleep to our overall health and what is that relationship that it might have to diabetes?
Dr. Jeff Bauman (Guest): Thank you very much for having me on the show, Melanie. Sleep is extremely important. Research has shown that with sleep deprivation, that increases the risk of many health issues including increasing weight with obesity, risk of cardiovascular disease and, specifically, diabetes which we’ll focus on today. It’s an interesting parallel because with sleep deprivation, we know that insulin resistance, which is the underlying cause of the most common type of diabetes – which is Type II – insulin resistance increases with sleep deprivation. Thus, our blood sugars are higher when we’re sleep deprived. But, it’s not just that. When we’re sleep deprived, many of us make less healthy choices when we’re sleep deprived because we’re looking for energy, so we go to the unhealthy quick choices. We are often too tired to stick with our exercise program, which is kind of a double-whammy with diabetes and with weight. Yes, definitely, sleep is important. The amount of sleep that everyone needs is really individualized. Some people need as little as maybe six hours. Some people need eight or ten hours. Finding that right balance for you is really important.
Melanie: If people are not getting enough sleep and we are such a stressed out society with the electronics and rushing around and getting everything done and everything needs to be done just right now. What do you tell people, Dr. Bauman, is your most important advice of balancing that?
Dr. Bauman: That’s a great question and it really is about balance. I always refer back to the four basic pillars of health. We always think of nutrition and exercise as being the most important but they’re only two of the four pillars. The other two are stress and sleep which is what we’re talking about. It’s not so much getting any one of the pillars perfect, it’s about getting the balance to be just right for you. As you said, a lot of us do feel like we’re under a lot of stress and many of us find the easiest thing that we can do is to take away our sleep to get everything done but we can be much more efficient during the day and manage our health better when we have better sleep. The primary goal for sleep is to restore. When we get restorative sleep, we do healthier things, we feel better, we’re more alert. We do less unhealthy things and, ultimately, our health is better. The most important thing, I think, is we feel our best. In terms of the electronics, it’s interesting that there is a lot of push as we have become a very electronic age, a lot of us use our electronic devices at night time which has been shown to negatively affect our sleep. There are simple things that we can do at night. Sleep hygiene is the term that we would use in terms of the routine that we do at night really does get ourselves ready to get into that restorative sleep. Turning off the electronics at a certain hour. Studies have shown that just turning the TV off at 10:00 at night will improve sleep cycles in many Americans. Interestingly, a lot of people use these smart phones and the newest things that are coming out is they have actually changed the coloring of the smart phone so that it’s less affecting our sleep in a negative way. It’s more of a yellow tone. Things like that actually will improve your sleep. When you wake up in the morning and you see a better blood sugar and you feel better, you’ll know you’re on the right track.
Melanie: Does lack of sleep, and/or stress, can that mimic insulin resistance?
Dr. Bauman: Absolutely. Studies have definitely shown that with poor sleep and with increasing stress, those two factors do contribute to increasing insulin resistance. The primary job of insulin is to utilize glucose, which is blood sugar, better. When insulin doesn’t work well, we call that insulin resistance. Blood sugars are higher. Many of us deal with stress whether it be physical, mental or a combination thereof, we know that stress definitely increases hormones that will increase insulin resistance. We think of the fight or flight – an animal that’s in danger--the hormones like epinephrine and cortisol rise. That is trying to get increased blood sugar so that the animal can have energy to get away from the danger. When we’re under stress, that’s happening all the time. People know it when they’re going through a significant illness or there is a major stress, really even small stresses have been shown to increasing these hormones. As patients check their blood sugars I tell them, “Listen, you have a great tool to correlate your stress with your blood sugars.” I tell people that when they check their blood sugar, just make a little note next to the blood sugar when you write it down in your blood sugar log. Make a note of one to ten what your stress level is at that moment, right next to your blood sugar. People see a pattern of the higher the stress level that they indicate, the higher the blood sugars often are. If you can focus on how to improve how we manage stress, you’re ultimately going to see improvement in your blood sugars, but, as I mentioned before, improvement in your overall health and wellbeing.
Melanie: Dr. Bauman, I want to talk about stress reduction techniques, especially for diabetes, but we’ve seen this link, and people keep hearing about it in the media, between obesity and lack of sleep and then, of course, Type II diabetes being one of the risks of obesity and comorbidities. Where does melatonin levels fit into that? Can a diabetic who’s having trouble sleeping take a melatonin supplement? Is there a correlation there at all?
Dr. Bauman: Sure. There are all of these association studies in terms of when trying to determine, why is it that when we’re under stress and we’re overweight, why is it that it does affect our sleep cycle? There’s not going to be probably one answer. I think there are going to be multiple factors. Each one factor may have a small or larger role but I think it’s going to be multifactorial. Melatonin is, obviously, linked with sleep. We all know melatonin has often been recommended for jet lag and a short-term sleep aid which, it does work. When people take it in a short-term way, it does work. Whether or not that is the only issue or the only answer, I don’t think that’s going to be the case. I do believe that we were built to not have to take supplements and drugs but when needed, I think it can be useful to get people back on track. The idea is to get a better balance of sleep, stress, eating and exercise. I think when we find that balance, all four will improve. We’re not talking about for just a few months. We’re talking about for life. Because health and diabetes is for life, it’s not just for a few months.
Melanie: What about stress reduction techniques? What do you like to tell your patients about whether yoga, exercise, massage, acupuncture--any of these things--to help relieve some of that stress and anxiety that we all feel?
Dr. Bauman: It’s so important to make a note that stress is how you feel about stress around you. These are external factors that many of us face but it’s how our bodies and our minds manage the stress. That’s what ultimately causes the higher blood sugars and the higher blood pressure and so forth. Finding techniques to manage that better is really individualized. Some people definitely find benefit with yoga and relaxation techniques. Many people find exercise is a great stress relief. Not only does it “burn off the stress” and allows us to refocus on our health, but ultimately doing, of course, exercise is going to have additional benefits with lowering blood sugar and blood pressure and getting us to sleep better. Exercise is definitely linked with good sleeping habits. But, really, you’ve got to find what works for you. Definitely, talking with someone – a friend or family--to kind of unload some of the stress that they may be keeping inside. Some people see a cognitive behavioral therapist. I think that’s a great idea for many patients as a short-term way to help to manage and learn how to manage stress. Because, again, it’s not so much the trigger - although certainly some triggers are worse than others in terms of stress - it’s how we respond. When we take what might be a negative stress and we turn it more into a positive outlay, that’s certainly going to make us better. I think of a bad winter storm and many people get all stressed about that. But, if we think about what are the positive things we can do? We can light a fire. We can make Smores with the kids. There are a lot of different things we can do to turn negative things into more positive energy. That’s going to ultimately help us live healthier lives.
Melanie: Such absolutely great advice and what a great way to wrap it up. Why should people come – diabetics specifically – to Summit Medical Group for their care?
Dr. Bauman: The key is that you mention team. It’s not just about one provider. I’m only one spoke in the wheel of the diabetes health team. It does require a team. At the center at the team, of course, is the patient. Patients that take ownership of their health and get engaged with their health are going to end up being the most successful with managing their health. The players they have on their team, certainly their providers. They’ve got nurse educators, they’ve got diabetes educators, as well, we have medical assistants. We have an entire team dedicated to providing the resources and the guidance to help patients make healthier choices and ultimately live healthier, longer lives.
Melanie: Thank you so much, Dr. Bauman, for being with us. It’s great information. You’re listening to SMG Radio and for more information you can go to SummitMedicalGroup.com. That’s SummitMedicalGroup.com. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening.