Listening to Your Body: Understanding Its Signals

Listen to your body. What is it telling you?

I was doing a centering exercise. It was supposed to bring me calm focus to guide my decisions and actions as I started my workday.

But see, here's the thing with diabetes: I can't always trust what my body is telling me. The sensations I experience and what's causing them can be very confusing. Sometimes, my body sends me mixed signals.

Are sensations due to low or high blood sugar?

Take hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) and hyperglycemia (high blood sugar). Some of the symptoms overlap. I find this very confusing. Especially when my symptoms have developed to the point where I'm no longer clear-headed.

Here are some symptoms that can seem like the same thing to me but with different names:

• Clumsiness vs. muscle weakness
• Shakiness vs. dizziness
• Irritability vs. confusion
• Hunger vs. light-headedness

Could you tell the difference if these were the labels floating around in your head?

Unanswered questions about the cause

I'm left with many unanswered questions when I experience any of these symptoms.

• Is my blood sugar high? Or is it low?
• Do I need to eat something?
• Should I take a walk?
• Drinking water may help. Or will that make me have to go to the bathroom?

How I'm feeling at the moment doesn't necessarily point me toward my best path forward.

Know your hunger signals

Many people feel hunger as a pit in their stomach, a big empty space that sometimes audibly grumbles.

Not me. Usually, my first sign of hunger is dizziness. But dizziness could also mean my blood glucose is dropping. So, which is it?

It's taken me a long time to accept that my hunger is separate from my glucose levels. I can be hungry and still have high glucose levels. I've responded to the wrong signal countless times as my head swirls.

What does my body need?

It comes down to what my body needs right now and how I respond best. That's the knot I have to untangle.

Generally, when I feel unsettled physically or emotionally, I don't immediately think about whether my glucose levels are low or high enough to be having a hypo- or hyperglycemic episode. Instead, my thoughts go to, "Am I hungry?"

I often wonder if my fatigue and lack of energy mean I need to eat something or if I am experiencing high glucose. I also consider if my stomach growled, if I'm feeling light-headed, or if I'm "hangry."

When unusual sensations occur, I try to look for patterns in my activities. I consider food, exercise, and medication:

• Did I eat? If so, how much and what kind of food?
• Did I exercise? If so, was the activity more strenuous than usual?
• Did I remember my medication?

But the patterns aren't often apparent, and again, I'm left without a clear signal of how to respond. Sometimes, I feel like I'm dancing on a tightrope, trying to maintain some balance amidst the uncertainty.

How I know what my body needs

I've learned that the one reliable way for me to tune in to my body is to take the extra step and check my blood sugar. That's the only way I can reliably know if the sensations are related to my glucose levels.

Taking the time and energy to check my glucose levels is the best way to understand my body's signals. My reading lets me tap into and decode my body's signals. Only with that actual number can I know I'm responding appropriately.

How do you understand your body's signals?

Managing life with diabetes is a continuous learning process. What's your experience when you tap into your body's signals? Share your experiences and insights in the comments so that we can learn from and support each other.