Sugar, Stress, & Diabetes
- Dr. Joshua Beaudry
- Dec 2, 2025
- 3 min read
Your brain runs on electricity—patterns of brainwaves that reflect your level of stress, focus, creativity, and emotional regulation. When blood sugar becomes unstable, these brainwaves shift, and the entire nervous system moves into survival mode.
Understanding this connection helps explain why stress, anxiety, blood sugar swings, and sleep disturbances often show up together—and why supporting the brain is essential for long-term metabolic and emotional health.
Brainwaves and the Stress Response
The brain communicates through rhythmic patterns called brainwaves:
Beta (13–38 Hz): Alertness, stress, worry, overthinking
Alpha (8–12 Hz): Calm, light relaxation, in-the-zone
Theta (3.5–8 Hz): Creativity, memory consolidation, deep calm
When you are in beta or alpha dominance, your brain is in a sympathetic stress response.
This is where most of us live when we’re overwhelmed, anxious, or dealing with constant life pressure.
What Puts You Into Stress Mode?
There are three primary forms of stress, and all of them disrupt brainwaves and blood sugar:
1. Physical Stress
Falls, car accidents, concussions, long-term sitting, repetitive strain, or injuries.
2. Chemical Stress
What you eat, drink, and breathe:
Glyphosate/Roundup
Mold exposure
Viral or bacterial infections
Environmental toxins (e.g. Alcohol, Marijuana, Pharmaceuticals)
3. Emotional Stress (the biggest driver)
Worry, grief, unresolved trauma, relational stress, mental overload.
Emotional stress alone can shift your brain into a beta-dominant state where cortisol surges, sleep breaks down, and anxiety patterns take hold.
How Stress Disrupts Blood Sugar
When the brain senses danger, it increases cortisol. Cortisol helps raise blood sugar so you have fast fuel for survival.
But if cortisol stays high—or eventually becomes fatigued—the body switches to epinephrine. This shift leads to:
Waking up between 2–4 a.m.
Difficulty falling back asleep
Feeling wired and tired
Increased heart rate
Restlessness
Cortisol spikes also make your muscles insulin resistant, meaning they stop pulling glucose out of the bloodstream efficiently.
Since 50% of your body’s glucose stores are located in your muscles as glycogen, this creates major instability.
When muscles can’t store glucose properly:
Blood sugar swings dramatically
Anxiety-like symptoms increase
Irritability and brain fog appear
Energy crashes happen
Long-term, this can lead to type 2 diabetes
Blood Sugar Swings Feel Like Anxiety
A blood sugar crash and an anxiety attack can feel identical:
Shakiness
Irritability
Foggy thinking
Nervousness
Heart pounding
Trouble concentrating
Many people are treating “anxiety” when they actually have metabolic instability driven by stress physiology.
What You Can Do to Stabilize Blood Sugar and Calm the Brain
The good news—your brain and your metabolism are trainable.
Nutritional Support
Supplements that support glucose regulation include:
Omega-3s
Apex Glysen
Apex Glycoberine
These improve cell sensitivity, reduce inflammation, and support stable energy levels.
Movement Hacks That Work
1–2 Minutes of Walking After Eating: Research shows that a short walk after meals can lower blood sugar as effectively as insulin in certain contexts.
Blood Flow Restriction (BFR) Exercise: This activates fast-twitch, glycogen-hungry muscle fibers that rapidly pull sugar into muscle cells—improving metabolic stability.
The Takeaway
Stress doesn’t just affect your mind—it directly shapes your brainwaves, hormones, blood sugar, and emotional well-being. When you learn to stabilize the brain and regulate stress physiology, you also stabilize your metabolism.
Small changes can transform how your brain and body feel every single day.
If you’re ready to take the next step, contact us today to set up your initial examination or join us at an upcoming workshop.
Life Springs Family Chiropractic – Denver, CO
Call/Text: (303) 770-0605
