Diabetes and Oxidative Stress

Most researchers are in basic agreement that the theory of oxidative stress is central to explaining the cause of diabetes. To understand the theory, one must first conceptualize that a "free radical" is any atom or molecule which has an "unpaired electron" in its outer ring. Because it is lacking an electron, it is unstable and very much wants to find one electron to fill its need. 

This "free radical" will steal an electron from any other molecule it encounters that is more willing to give one up and thus it becomes satisfied. but now the victim molecule has become a free radical itself and so it now will look for another victim molecule to steal its much-desired electron from thus propagating this cycle over and over again. 

This cycle is called "the chain reaction of free radicals". The chief danger of free radicals comes from the damage they can do when they react with important cellular components such as DNA, or the cell membrane. Cells may function To prevent free radical damage the body has a defense system of antioxidants. Antioxidants are molecules that can safely interact with free radicals and terminate the chain reaction before vital molecules are damaged. 

Although there are several enzyme systems within the body that scavenge free radicals, the principle antioxidants are glutathione, SOD (superoxide dismutase), beta carotene, vitamin E, vitamin C, CoQ10, melatonin, and alpha-lipoic acid. According to the theory of oxidative stress, free radicals run rampant through the body wreaking havoc. 

In the case of type 1 diabetes damaging beta cells in the pancreas, negatively impacting their ability to produce insulin in the case of type 2 diabetes damaging cell membranes, leading to a breakdown in intercellular signaling. And if that were not bad enough free radicals deplete our body's reserve of antioxidants further contributing to the problem. 

This is why it is so important to lower oxidative stress with a better diet, more exercise, an improved lifestyle; and to take all the antioxidant supplements known to neutralize the excess free radicals. There is still a lot to learn about the causes of diabetes, but what is known, is that our bodies may begin to malfunction five to seven years before we are ever diagnosed with diabetes. 

That is why researchers believe that nearly 30-50% of the people who have diabetes don't even know it. It is vital for the person with diabetes to measure his blood sugar and get to KNOW not to GUESS about his body. he needs to know how stress affects him, how carbs affect him, and how everything affects his blood sugar. Knowledge is power. Sometimes we find that just certain foods, just certain stresses just certain times of the month make the diabetes work.

How Can You Eliminate Stress from Your Life?

As we have seen, positive stress adds anticipation and excitement to life, and we all thrive under a certain amount of stress. Deadlines, competitions, confrontations, and even our frustrations and sorrows add depth and enrichment to our lives. Our goal is not to eliminate stress but to learn how to manage it and how to use it to help us.

stress acts as a depressant and may leave us feeling bored or dejected; on the other hand, excessive stress may leave us feeling tied up in knots. What we need to do is find the optimal level of stress which will individually motivate but not overwhelm each of us.

How Can You Tell What Is Optimal Stress for Me?

There is no single level of stress that is optimal for all people. We are all individual creatures with unique requirements. As such, what is distressing to one may be a joy to another. And even when we agree that a particular event is distressing, we are likely to differ in our physiological and psychological responses to it.

The person who loves to arbitrate disputes and move from job site to job site would be stressed in a job that was stable and routine. Whereas the person who thrives under stable conditions would very likely be stressed on a job where duties were highly varied. Also, our personal stress requirements and the amount which we can tolerate before we become distressed changes with our lifestyles and our ages.

It has been found that most illness is related to unrelieved stress. If you are experiencing stress symptoms, you have gone beyond your optimal stress level; you need to reduce the stress in your life and/or improve your ability to manage it.

How Can You Manage Stress Better?

Identifying unrelieved stress and being aware of its effect on our lives is not enough for reducing its harmful effects. Just as there are many sources of stress, there are many possibilities for its management. However, all require effort toward change. Because changing the source of stress and/or changing your reaction to it. How do you proceed?

1. Become aware of your stressors and your emotional and physical reactions.

•     Notice your distress. Don’t ignore it. Don’t gloss over your problems.

•     Determine what events distress you. What are you telling yourself about the meaning of these events?

•   Determine how your body responds to stress. Do you become nervous or physically upset? If so, in what specific ways?

2. Recognize what you can change.

•  Can you change your stressors by avoiding or eliminating them completely?

•   Can you reduce their intensity (manage them over a period instead of on a daily or weekly basis)?

• Can you shorten your exposure to stress (take a break, leave the physical premises)?

•  Can you devote the time and energy necessary to making a change (goal setting, time management techniques, and delayed gratification strategies may be helpful here)?

3. Reduce the intensity of your emotional reactions to stress.

•     The stress reaction is triggered by your perception of danger. Physical danger and/or emotional danger. Are you viewing your stressors in exaggerated terms and/or taking a difficult situation and making it a disaster?

•         Are you expecting to please everyone?

•     Are you overreacting and viewing things as critical and urgent? Do you feel you must always prevail in every situation?

•     Work at adopting more moderate views; try to see the stress as something you can cope with rather than something that overpowers you.

•     •Try to temper your excess emotions. Put the situation in perspective. Do not labor on the negative aspects and the ‘‘what if’s.”

4. Learn to moderate your physical reactions to stress.

•     Slow, deep breathing will bring your heart rate and respiration back to               normal.

•     Relaxation techniques can reduce muscle tension. Electronic biofeedback can help you gain voluntary control over such things as muscle tension, heart rate, and blood pressure.

•     Medications, when prescribed by a physician, can help in the short term in moderating your physical reactions. However, they alone are not the answer. Learning to moderate these reactions on your own is a preferable long-term solution.

5. Build your physical reserves.

•     Exercise for cardiovascular fitness three to four times a week (moderate,          prolonged rhythmic exercise is best, such as walking, swimming, cycling, or       jogging).

•     Eat a well-balanced, nutritious diet.

•     Maintain your ideal weight.

•     Avoid nicotine, excessive caffeine, and other stimulants.

•     Mix leisure with work. Take breaks and getaway when you can.

•     Get enough sleep. Be as consistent with your sleep schedule as possible.

6. Maintain your emotional reserves.

•     Develop some mutually supportive friendships/ relationships.

•     Pursue realistic goals which are meaningful to you, rather than goals others have for you that you do not share.

•     Expect some frustrations, failures, and sorrows.

•     Always be kind and gentle with yourself be a friend to yourself.

Read More - 

• The Strategies for Stress Management
• Hearing, the Vital Part of Your Personality
• Reasons to Take Good Sleep
• Natures Medicine Chest

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Stress Management Technique

What Is Stress?

Stress is the “wear and tear” of our bodies experience as we adjust to our continually changing environment. It has physical and emotional effects on us and can create positive or negative feelings. As a positive influence, stress can help compel us to action. It can result in a new awareness and an exciting new perspective.

It can dominant over with the death of a loved one, the birth of a child, a job promotion, or a new relationship, we experience stress as we readjust our lives. In so adjusting to different circumstances, stress will help or hinder us depending on how we react to it.

Strategies for Stress Management  

The new enforcement profession is laden with job-related stressors such as shift work, staff shortages, job overload, multitasking, and high visibility in the public’s eye. These are just a few stressors that contribute to the pressure and strain on any personnel. Stress may produce adverse effects on any individual. The main types of adverse effects are

1.    Impaired job performance

2.    Psychological problems

3.    Physical health problems

This includes difficulties in carrying out duties effectively and efficiently as well as absenteeism and premature retirement. Law enforcement personnel have an image to uphold: the image of one who “protects and serves” no matter the circumstances or dangers encountered. In this line of work, it is indispensable for one to become psychologically hardened in many situations.

While performing one’s duty, there is no time for human emotions such as fear, anger or sadness. As a result, shedding this image off duty becomes difficult and can create a great deal of stress. The effects of stress can impact not only the individual but the individual’s family, the organization and the people served by the department.

Hence, it is very important to realize the strategies for stress management. Because a person must assume self-responsibility in one’s level of health and sickness. To a certain degree, each person is responsible for the quality of life one lives. There are no shortcuts to stress management techniques. It takes a personal commitment, complete involvement, and an understanding of stress, its symptoms, and causes.

Stress appears in many forms. Listed below are some are main points, but not all, symptoms a person may develop due to stress.

Physical Symptoms:

·         Stomach ulcers

·         High blood pressure

·         Diabetes

·         Fatigue increased susceptibility to illness (weakening of immune system)

·         Chest pains migraine

·         Sleep problems

·         Rapid or shallow breathing

·         Disturb mind due to overthinking

·         Alzheimer

Do not overlook these warning symptoms. Heart attacks and strokes are the number one cause of death for America’s criminal justice worker.

Emotional Symptoms:

·         Poor appetite (either overeating or not eating enough)

·         General irritability and chronic anger

·         Emotional instability, moodiness

·         Difficulty concentrating (leads to accident proneness)

·         Cynicism

·         Depression

·         Poor memory

·         Displacement (blaming others)

·         Depersonalization

If any of the stress symptoms mentioned above are persistent or have become a chronic pattern in your life, seek help. Talk to someone you trust. Do not deny or disregard these symptoms or warning signs.

There are steps to reduce the hazardous effects of job demands, unhealthy lifestyle, stress and trauma. Here are some strategies for stress management to help in reducing the stress in your life.

1.    Accept the fact you are human

Some things are out of your control and the outcome does not lie in your possession. Accept you do not have all the answers and you may not always be right. Also accept, despite your best efforts and motives, situations may not turn out in the best possible way. Accepting you are human is accepting your feelings and faults; your strengths and weaknesses; and your limitations.

2.    Daily Exercise

Physical activity is one of the most effective ways to reduce stress. A twenty-minute work-out for a couple of times in a week relieves stress and allows for the release of pent up tension and anxiety.

3.    Develop positive anti-stress habits

•     Find ways to cut back on your activities and commitments. Learn to say “No”. Self-induced stress may be the result of over-extending yourself.

•     Plan ahead whenever possible in order to avoid the last-minute rush.

•     Be aware of your daily rhythms. Plan activities during the time of day when you have the most energy.

•     Evaluate how you spend your time – and learn time management. Prioritize the things in your life and let go of the less important tasks which do not necessarily HAVE to be done.

•     When possible, do not tackle too many changes/decisions at once.

•     Ask for help or assistance.

4.    Practice good nutrition

Eat the right kinds of food; cut back on your fats and cholesterol. Your diet should include foods rich in fiber and complex carbohydrates, along with fruits and vegetables. A healthy body leads to a healthy mind, a mind better able to handle stress and prevent the weakening of one’s immune system.

5.    Get enough sleep and rest

It is essential to get enough rest; sleep is a restorative process for the body as well as the mind. At least six hours of sleep per night is necessary to function at an optimum level. Deprivation of sleep over a long period of time is not healthy.

6.    Develop your family and friends as support groups

Talk out your worries. Share your thoughts, feelings, and reactions with those close to you. They may have the same concerns. Keep the lines of communication open.

7.    Learn relaxation techniques

Develop a program for yourself in which you block out outside interference. Focus on relaxing your body. This does not mean relax to the point of sleep, rather it takes ten or fifteen minutes to re-group and focus. If time does not allow for this, take ten deep breaths and face the problem slightly more relaxed than before. Limit the noise in your home. Turn the TV off or the radio down.

8.    Limit your intake of caffeine and alcohol

Caffeine is a stimulant and can have the same effect as too much stress. Alcohol is a depressant and can aggravate stress. Avoid stress seesaw by restricting your use of both caffeine and alcohol. Develop other ways of relaxing.

Don’ts

Think you are “crazy” - stress reactions to abnormal situations are normal. Withdraw from family, friends, and co-workers. Automatically stay away from work. Drink alcohol excessively. Moreover, use legal or illegal substances to numb post-trauma consequences.

“DO”

Learn to take one thing at a time. Learn to accept things you cannot change or Maintain a good diet and exercise. Take time for leisure activities. Remind yourself that stress from certain incidents is normal.

Spend more time with family, friends, and co-workers. Talk to others who are good listeners when an incident bothers you. Also, assess your attitude towards life and your job. Get extra help, if necessary.

Strategies for Stress Management requires an understanding of stress symptoms and causes. It also requires personal commitment. This should be a commitment all personnel is willing to make for themselves, their family and the public they serve.

How to Cope with Stress?

Stress can come from anywhere – anger or frustration an illness, the mere thoughts, deadlines at work, a new home, the birth of a child, shopping, and the headlines in your newspaper. The stress of handling it all can make you anxious, cranky and tired. Stress is exhausting, can make you sick. The less serious conditions that are stress-related are fatigue, headache, heartburn, indigestion, insomnia, and even hair loss.

But stress also undermines the immune system and can increase susceptibility to infection, heart disease, and cancer. Stress affects everything you do. Some behaviors that appear to be caused by low self worth overeating, not exercising, neglecting our own needs are really caused by having too little time and too much stress. In and of itself, stress is neither negative nor positive. It is our reaction to stress that affects our physical and emotional health. Although everyone experience stress, not everyone handles it constructively. For instance in addition to zapping your energy, stress depletes your time. You are less likely to make yourself a salad for dinner and more likely to rip open a bag of corn chips while you sit on the cough and watch the evening news. You may think this is relaxing and that yu are dealing with the stress of crazy day, but you are not. Actually you’re adding your stress by not eating well. The healthier you are the better you can handle stress. You need to have your body working at maximum capacity to deal with stress.

The bottom line in dealing with stress is to cope, to handle the stress in such a way that it doesn’t harm you. Life is one stressful situation after another, and there’s no way to remove stress from your life. And you shouldn’t want to. It’s stress that challenges you and makes you grow. Stress is what keeps us all going. What should you do about stress? There are several types of techniques for battling the negative effects of stress everything from exercise and meditation to taking 15 minute mini vacation from stress several times a day. The right diet can also help. 

Good diet will give you the strength you need and keep your immune system and nervous system in great shape. Thus, to understand why good nutritional habits are essential during periods of stress, it is very important to recognize how the body responds to stress. When faced with a huge dose of stress the body relies on the digestive system. Epinephrine “adrenaline” the stress hormone, is released from the adrenal glands. This hormone travels through the body to increase blood pressure heart rate, and breathing. Digestion shuts down fats and sugars are release from stores in the body, and cholesterol levels rise. The result of these hormonal changes is an aroused and tense state that prepares a person to meet danger. This is known as the fight or flight response. This response was needed back when cavemen had to react to physical danger. When the danger was no longer threatening the body would return to normal.

The reacts to stress in the same way, but instead of running or fighting you just get the stressed out state. And you can stay in a state of tension unless you find ways to release it. Food can affect stress in many ways. What you eat either can promote or relieve stress. It can also either help or hinder how the body handles the physical stress response. To build up your resistance to stress try these eating tips.

1.        Don’t Skip Meals: Stress depletes you of energy. Many people really don’t eat enough, either because they don\t have time or because they are trying to lose weight. Since food is essential of energy, these practices actually increase stress. When you skip meals, you don’t tolerate stress as well because you lack energy.

2.        Eat for energy: The first rule is to be consistent. Eat at regular times each day even if you are not hungry. That way you will head off hunger pangs that are bound to surface later, and spacing meals four to six hours apart and filling in with snacks when required.

3.        Eat Enough: If you know you have to expend an enormous amount of energy in the morning, you have to take a good breakfast. If you are mood swings and fatigue in the early afternoon. Make your breakfast low in fat focusing on complex carbohydrates. Some good suggestions are whole grain cereal with low fat milk or toast with yogurt or cheese for added protein. A breakfast full of sugar, may give you a temporary boost but will leave you drained an hour later just about the time you are ready to being your presentation.

4.        Do Break for Lunch: Eating lunch at your desk may sound like a good way to squeeze in some extra work, but it’s better for your stress level to get away for a while. Eat separate from where you spend the rest of your stress filled day. Let coworkers know you don’t want to talk about work or other stressful situation while you eat. A powerful lunch is okay once in a while, however don’t make it habit. It only adds to  your stress level and interferes with your digestive process.

5.        Don’t Overeat: When people are under a great deal of stress, they often tend to do things in excess, whether its eating, drinking or spending. Giving in to the anxiety from stress makes you feel calm and in control but this euphoria is only temporary. A few days later there’s guilt for the indulgent behavior and that compounds the original stress. Thus, overeating and compulsive eating typically affect those who haven’t learned to handle stress or how to express anxiety and tension orally. Stock up fresh fruits yogurt rice cakes and herbal tea.

6.        Don’t give in to Sugar Carvings. There is not person alive who hasn’t at some point reached for a chocolate bar in the middle of a stress packed afternoon. Some people triggered by an onslaught of continual stress, go on sugar binges. They devour large quantities of sweets a bag of cookies a quart of ice cream at a time. When you’re stressed you are perhaps drawn to junk foods. Chocolate and cookies won’t make stress go away. Eating sweets may give you an initial boost of energy, but within an hour you would be feel even more sluggish tense, and irritable.

7.        Drink lots of Fluids: Dehydration causes fatigue and clouds your thinking. Try to have 2 quarts of fluid each day, either plain water or non-caffeinated beverages such as juice or herbal tea. If you work in an office all day, you should try to drink even more fluids. Dry, overheated or highly air conditioned buildings increase the rate at which the body loses water.

8.        Don’t Rely on Coffee: Some people turn to coffee tea or caffeinated soda for a quick pick me up. You feel more energetic at first, however after the effects wear off, you may feel even more tired and crave another energy boost. Too much caffeine also can make you edgy. Caffeine acts in the body like a shot of epinephrine, increasing the heart rate and blood pressure. Caffeine is a diuretic; it causes dehydration which is fatiguing. To counter it, drink a glass of water for every cup of coffee tea or soda you have.

9.        Don’t use Alcohol to Relieve Stress: Many people drink when they are tense and uncomfortable. They reach for a glass of wine or some beer to unwind after a stressful day. Alcohol does give an immediate sense of stress relief, but once the buzz is gone, so is the good mood. Alcohol also causes disrupted sleep, which makes stress even more likely to return. Alcohol deprives the body of nutrients from other foods. Alcohol is metabolized by the liver, it uses up niacin and thiamin, which means these B vitamins are not available for other purposes. Alcohol also depletes your energy by dehydrating the body. Since alcohol is a diuretic, which increases the output of urine, it causes the loss of such water soluble minerals as magnesium, potassium and zinc.

So, eat regularly and eat enough, so pay careful attention to eating a good well balanced diet when you are under lot of stress. Stress also leads to Anxiety and depression, which are very difficult situation. So try to relax and calm, don’t take too much tension. Every work takes their own time so taking more stress will not change the situation.

Stress The Main Killer

What Stress Does To Your Body