Cortisol and Blood Sugar: The T1D Overnight Connection You're Probably Missing

SHOW NOTES:

Cortisol isn't trying to ruin your blood sugar. It's trying to help. It has never once, in your entire life, acted with malice. It is a useful, important hormone that is -- in the modern world -- very confused about what an actual emergency looks like.

This episode is about cortisol: what it's designed to do, what it's actually responding to in modern life ("quick question" emails at 10pm), and what it's doing to your blood sugar by midnight. For T1D people, cortisol-driven blood sugar rises don't get quietly compensated by a functioning pancreas. They land. And they land on top of whatever else was already happening overnight. Understanding the cortisol loop is the first step to interrupting it -- starting with the hour before bed.

We're in Week 6 of the While You Were Sleeping Challenge. Solutions are building.

In this episode:

What cortisol is actually designed to do -- and why your lion never shows up
How cortisol raises blood sugar in T1D without the automatic pancreas feedback to catch it
The full cortisol loop: poor sleep raises cortisol, cortisol raises blood sugar, elevated blood sugar disrupts sleep
Why what you do in the hour before bed shows up in your midnight glucose
How to start rating your pre-bed stress and looking for the pattern in your own data

This Week's Challenge: Rate your stress level 1-10 before bed, three nights this week. Note your morning blood sugar each time. Look for the pattern.

Helpful resources and newsletter: https://yourbestt1dyear.com

Connect with Neil: TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@the.betes Instagram: https://instagram.com/thebetes Facebook: https://facebook.com/neilgreathouse LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/neil-greathouse-a607b912 Website: https://yourbestt1dyear.com

Books on Amazon: Type 1 Diabetes – One Day at a Time: https://a.co/d/6UHooWJ Type 1 Diabetes – True Stories: https://a.co/d/dfIlyI1

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