You know that feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you receive bad news? It’s like your heart falls to the floor and your stomach starts swirling from the perceived sensation.

That’s unpleasant enough on its own, but for me, it can also cause blood sugar issues.

The same thing can be said for when I’m on a literal roller coaster (which doesn’t happen often, but when it does, involves extreme coercion from family or friends) – I get that awful swooping sensation on top of some sort of blood sugar impact.

Whether it’s anxiety, adrenaline, fear, or just a rush of unidentifiable feelings, there’s no doubt about it: Extreme emotions tend to make my blood sugar unhappy by causing it to spike.

I’ve always been somewhat aware of this phenomenon, but I started thinking about it more last week when I got some upsetting news. (I’m okay, please don’t start to speculate on what it was…just a personal matter that I don’t care to discuss in greater detail here. Love y’all for understanding and respecting that.)

Actually, it’s kind of interesting to think about how the sequence of events unfolded last Thursday. I received a message that caused me to instantly panic. I was going to learn the context behind the message about a half hour after I got it, so in the interim, I was pacing all around the house and trying to figure out what exactly was going on. My stomach was roiling, my palms were coated in a light sheen of sweat, and my already-unruly hair frizzed out even more….

…and my CGM trend started going up, up, up, ever so slowly but noticeably.

I didn’t do anything to correct my blood sugar – at least, not right away. I waited until after I heard the specific news that had gotten me so worked up to really pay attention to my rising levels. I probably could have made my high blood sugar less severe by running a temporary basal increase right after I initially freaked out, but obviously, I had other things on my mind than my diabetes at that moment in time.

The whole experience was a stark reminder that food and insulin are far from the only things that impact blood sugar levels. Raw human emotion did that to me, and it will do that to me again in the future.

It sucks, but isn’t it also fascinating to think about how diabetes is totally a physical and emotional chronic condition, in every possible way?