Sleep and Diabetes: How does diabetes affect sleep and blood sugar at night?

Struggling to sleep? Constantly waking up to go to the bathroom, hungry, or with a random unwanted energy surge at 3 am (leaving you shattered in the daytime). It can be hard to get a good night’s sleep when you’re dealing with diabetes or pre-diabetes. But by understanding how blood sugar affects your rest, you can adjust your lifestyle factors to get better results, and that solid night of shuteye that we all so desperately need.

How does diabetes affect sleep and blood sugar at night?

Blood sugar has a massive effect on the quality of sleep, but it’s a two-way street, depending on whether your blood sugar is too high or too low. The effects can include spikes in adrenaline and regular trips to the loo, and then the resulting poor sleep has a knock-on effect on your day – increasing stress hormones and insulin resistance and making your blood sugar difficult to manage and trapped in a challenging cycle.

Rest and high blood sugar

Here’s what’s happening. With high blood sugar, or hyperglycemia, your kidneys are under pressure to filter your blood and excrete the excess sugar circulating in your system. This is even harder if you’ve had a late-night sugary snack, and it leads to nocturnal polyuria, which is the medical name for needing to wee endlessly.

At the same time, you might struggle with feelings of being thirsty and feeling very hot, which can make it very difficult to fall asleep. If you’re a midlife woman waking up with a hot sweat, don’t automatically assume it’s down to perimenopause. It could be a sign of pre diabetes.

These physical sensations can then lead to a cortisol stress release, which keeps the brain awake and alert, and has the unwanted knock-on effect of raising your blood sugar even further.

Rest and low blood sugar

Low blood sugar happens when you have hypoglycemia, which means low glucose in your body. This triggers a stress response (unless you are adapted in some way, such as following a cyclical ketogenic diet), leading to adrenaline and cortisol release. These stress hormones then wake you up with symptoms such as nightmares, a racing heart, hot flushes, or intense anxiety.

If you get into a habit of waking up endlessly, often in a sweat or stage of anxiety because of repeated adrenaline release, your sleep becomes incredibly fragmented and prevents you from entering a stage of restorative sleep.

The challenge of sleep deprivation

When you’re constantly deprived of enough quality sleep, your body becomes stressed and releases cortisol. At the same time, it limits leptin, which is the hormone that makes you feel full. This means that the next day, you will have a spike in blood sugar and more insulin resistance. This can quickly become a vicious cycle that is very difficult to exit, unless you take clear steps to break it.

How to get a good night’s sleep as a diabetic

These steps will all help you to get your blood sugar under control and get that vital good night’s sleep:

1. Firstly, focus on stabilising your blood sugar before you go to bed. This will prevent highs or lows that prevent you from sleeping deeply.
2. Wear a Continuous Glucose Monitor to track your progress.
3. Keep a strict sleep schedule with consistent hours and good sleep habits – a very dark, cool room, no screen time before bed, and a wind-down routine. Keep this sleep routine at weekends and don’t sleep in.
4. Don’t eat for three hours before bed. If you must have a snack, choose a protein-based small snack and avoid refined carbs, which instantly spike your blood sugar. Don’t drink alcohol or caffeine.
5. Check your medication in case you can adjust your timings for insulin and medications, as these can all have an effect.
6. If you frequently need to wee at night, limit caffeine after 2 pm and taper out drinks from 8 pm onward.
7. When you wake up, get natural sunlight as early as you can – even just for ten minutes on the doorstep while you have a cuppa! This has an important effect on your circadian rhythm.

So if you’re asking “how does diabetes affect sleep and blood sugar at night”, you now have the facts. And last but not least, if you continue to struggle with sleep as a diabetic, speak to your doctor, who may be able to arrange a referral to a sleep clinic, especially if you have a linked condition such as sleep apnea.

FAQs

Does exercise matter when it comes to sleep for diabetics?

Yes, it’s vital to exercise to manage blood sugar and overall metabolic health, but don’t do high-intensity exercise close to bedtime. A gentle walk or yoga will help you to relax.

How does diabetes affect sleep and blood sugar at night if I drink alcohol?

Alcohol sends your body on a blood sugar rollercoaster, and the alcohol itself also prevents you from entering a deep sleep. Just don’t do it!

Can some supplements help?

Yes, magnesium blends can be helpful, and our bodies are often deficient in this vital mineral, too. Try a magnesium drink or a herbal sleep supplement, but speak to your doctor first. Avoid commercial sleeping tablets. It’s far more important to get your sleep hygiene and diet right.