Emotional Diabetes

I consider myself pretty educated on emotional factors that affect my glucose levels. My glucose used to spike when I lifted weights or climbed a steep hill. I realized memories would drift in during those activities, so I focused on my feet touching the ground. Cool air coming into my lungs. Sweat forming on my body. And my glucose spikes stopped.

It was like someone flipped a switch. Those spikes stopped once that realization of the memory effect became known.

Crazy.

Now I’m coming to grips with another positive change. It has to do with Polyvagal Theory, something developed by Dr. Stephen Porges. It proposes that social connection can help the nervous system detect safety and shift away from defensive states.

First, let me give you the background. Modern tech has given me the insight that my body is, for the large part, always in fight-or-flight mode. It’s been that way for years and I don’t think there’s anything I can do to change it. My watch is always advising me to chill out, and I’m chilled as much as I can consciously be.

Yet my health numbers are stable. My body has adjusted to the high fight-or-flight, and I’m as “okay” as I can be.

The change I’m seeing are my glucose numbers. The periods of insulin resistance seemed to have vanished. For background, and as noted in an earlier post (Insulin Resistance Unleashed), my glucose can be affected by trauma. It can rise up to four times its normal level following an incident. I may not be aware of what these triggers are, but I see the glucose rise for hours or days, and I adjust my insulin pump settings accordingly.

I wrote about moving to a rental this spring. The living arrangement didn’t work out. I took my home off the market and returned, knowing I’d need to find a job to pay for the strata fees.

For background: I’m 67, a retired journalist/current novelist who loves solitude and has a fairly strong fear of numbers. So what job did I get? A cashier at a grocery store.

Perfect. Cash is all about numbers. Produce codes are numbers. My eight-digit employee number, the one I need to input multiple times a day? Yeesh. Don’t get me started.

But it’s been three months and things are starting to come together. As I write this, I’m on the cusp of Canadian Thanksgiving. I’ve been inputting the codes for brussels sprouts, russet potatoes and sweet potatoes for days. I think I’ve got them in my head, but a moment of panic can wipe them from memory.

The best part of the job is the parade of ordinary people I chat with. Some look at my name tag and call me by name. A few don’t want to chat–fine. And some come out with truly extraordinary insights into their lives.

“I just lost my husband–my mind’s a mess,” an elderly woman said the other day.

Another said she was heading to hospital for surgery, and was uneasy.

And, in my first week, the most surprising event was reuniting with a former nephew I never knew I had. He glanced at my name tag. He asked where I grew up. I said Boat Harbour in Cedar. He said, “I was at your wedding.”

WTF?

He was one of a multitude my ex’s relatives who attended the 1990 ceremony. The marriage lasted 12 years. But Dave still remembered me, and that’s touching. When my ex decided to move on with another woman, the nephew said the family was angry with him–they liked me. But that’s all in the distant past. I’ve now got a new relationship with Dave, my former nephew. He shops at my store every Saturday and waits for my checkout to clear so we can chat. He often pulls out his phone and shows me the latest photos of his grandchildren. He jokingly calls me Aunty Sandra.

It feels nice, since I have no children of my own. No nieces or nephews in my immediate family.

You’re probably wondering what all this has to do with my glucose numbers and the Vagus theory. Well, everything. My glucose numbers have flattened. I haven’t had to adjust my basal dose of insulin for months. I don’t get those sustained high glucose levels anymore. Zilch.

The National Institutes of Health state that the Vagus Nerve looks to socialization to calm the body.

“Ventral Vagal (Safe & Social): The top of the hierarchy; mediated by the myelinated ventral vagus. It supports calm, safe social engagement, emotional regulation, and physical restoration.”

The NIH points to “neuroception”– The subconscious process by which the nervous system continuously scans the internal and external environment for cues of safety, danger, or life threat—without conscious awareness.

Standing at a cash register, interacting with people, appears to be helping my Type 1 diabetes.

Whodathunk?

My normal way of living had been isolating myself with my Macbook Air, my imagination taking me into fictional relationships between my characters.

My real life job now has me doing the same, but it’s no longer imaginary. Nor is the positive effect on my body.