Blood sugar levels change naturally during the day, including when sleeping. However, in people with diabetes or pre-diabetes, some evening habits can cause blood sugar to increase or decrease excessively, affecting health and sleep.
Maintaining reasonable eating and living habits in the evening plays an important role in maintaining stable blood sugar throughout the night.
Skipping meals or irregular eating
Skipping dinner or eating at an irregular time can increase the risk of hypoglycemia at night. People with diabetes are often recommended to eat at fixed times to easily control medication and insulin.
Dinner should be about 3-4 hours before bedtime and there needs to be a balance between complex carbohydrates, protein and healthy fats to maintain stable energy.
Drinking alcohol in the evening
Alcohol can cause blood sugar to drop for several hours after drinking, especially when drinking on an empty stomach. This increases the risk of hypoglycemia during sleep.
If using alcohol, you should eat foods containing complex starch to limit blood sugar fluctuations.
Eating too much or eating too late
Eating too much dinner or snacking close to bedtime can cause blood sugar to rise for a long time throughout the night, especially when foods contain a lot of sugar or refined starch.
You should finish dinner a few hours before bedtime so that the body has time to digest and stabilize blood sugar.
Exercise in the evening but not supplementing appropriate energy
Light walking after meals can help control blood sugar, but high-intensity exercise in the evening sometimes causes blood sugar to drop too much at night.
People with diabetes should snack before or after exercise and check their blood sugar before going to bed to limit the risk of hypoglycemia.
Compensating for excessively low blood sugar before bed
When blood sugar is low, many people often eat too many sweets to increase blood sugar quickly. This can cause blood sugar to rise too high afterwards.
Rule 15-15 can be applied: add about 15g of carbohydrates, wait 15 minutes and then check your blood sugar again before continuing to eat more if needed.
Choosing inappropriate food
Foods high in added sugar, saturated fat and sodium can make blood sugar more difficult to control.
Dinner should prioritize green vegetables, fiber-rich foods, protein and control the diet reasonably to support blood sugar stabilization.
Forgetting to take medicine or inject insulin
Forgetting diabetes medication or using insulin in the wrong dose can cause blood sugar to rise the next morning.
Notes
If you often wake up with high blood sugar levels even though it is normal before bed, patients should talk to their doctor to adjust the treatment regimen.
People with diabetes should monitor blood sugar regularly and pay attention to abnormal signs such as tremors, sweating, rapid heartbeat, dry mouth, thirst or frequent urination at night. At the same time, it is necessary to maintain a scientific diet, exercise properly and adhere to treatment to control stable blood sugar for a long time.
