If you think that managing diabetes effectively would involve just the monitoring of the blood sugar levels throughout the day, then you might be wrong!!
Point to be noted is that it is essential that we must adopt healthy eating habits before bedtime also for managing diabetes effectively. For the blood sugar control, night time is critical and our overall health would get affected due to the blood sugar fluctuations during the night time. In those persons who have a normal sleep schedule, blood sugar level would spike between 4am to 8am in the morning.
It is necessary that we must do certain important things to avoid the spike in the blood sugar levels during night time. These are
By choosing the right evening snack:
It is important that we must eat healthy snacks having high fibre or proteins and low carbohydrate content while feeling hungry before bedtime. Examples are nuts, Greek yoghurt etc. By eating these foods, we would not get blood sugar spikes at night. It is necessary not to eat refined carbs or sugary foods at night time.
By establishing a consistent sleep schedule:
For our overall health and for blood sugar control etc, it is necessary that we must have a consistent sleeping schedule. We must try to go to bed and wake up at the same time every day. Our appetite as well as blood sugar levels would be controlled as the hormones would get regulated by quality or sound sleep. Not sleeping well could lead to insulin resistance. It is important to create a calm bedtime routine that would signal the body to wind down.
By limiting screen time before bed:
Our sleep quality would get interfered by exposure to screens from smart phones, computers and televisions etc. Melatonin production would get disrupted by means of blue light that would get emitted from these devices. This would make it difficult to get sleep. It is necessary to switch off these devices atleast half an hour before bedtime.
By limiting the intake of water:
While it is important that we must drink water throughout the day to stay hydrated, we must also limit water intake before bedtime. By drinking too much water, we would result in more trips to bathrooms etc and that would disrupt sleep.
By monitoring blood sugar levels:
It must be noted that we must monitor our blood sugar levels before going to bed. By this, we could g get some idea regarding how our body would respond to food, medication and daily activities etc. Point is that if the blood sugar levels are high then we could take necessary steps by adjusting the evening meals etc.
