Diabetes is a growing concern that the world is dealing with. Every year the statistics for diabetic people just show an upward trend. Now, more than ever, is the time to spread awareness regarding general practices and lifestyle choices that can help curb and control abnormal blood sugar levels. This article is written with the aim of propagating quick and easy exercises that help you keep your blood sugar levels under a scrutinous check. When you read through these exercises for diabetes, do keep in mind that these activities need to be executed in alignment with a healthy lifestyle and a balanced diet. Just partaking in these exercises will not magically cure diabetes for you, but it will certainly allow you to keep your blood sugar under your control.
The Rising Importance of Exercise - Why Diabetic Patients Should Stay Active?
Activity is the opposite of stillness, an activity of eternal stagnation. Staying active not only affects you physically but it has severe mental implications which register in the positive direction. We know that exercising regularly promotes a healthy metabolism and keeps ailments away, but for a diabetic person it could mean a better life all together, with regulated levels of blood sugar. The other effects of diabetes like low levels of energy, stiffness, etc. can also be efficiently controlled with the help of regular exercise. The significance of daily exercise cannot be overemphasised. Here are some of the comprehensively listed benefits of exercising regularly.
- Improving Insulin Sensitivity: Exercising has a unique proposition if you are trying to use it for blood sugar control. Indulging in proper physical exercise can bring your GLUT4 proteins closer to your cell walls, absorbing glucose into the cell without the need of insulin. Besides that, exercise entices mitochondrial biogenesis, enhancing the ability of muscle cells to absorb glucose more efficiently.
- Manage Your Weight And Sugar Levels: When you exercise, your weight stays under a certain limit, keeping you fit and energetic. If your weight were to go above the optimal point, you will face severe loss of energy, loss of appetite and other issues. It is thus recommended to exercise daily to manage your weight competently.
- Enhanced Heart Health: Keeping yourself on the toe with regular movement has the benefit of having a strong heart. You can easily implement some light to medium exercise routines to keep your heart health under check. Diabetes has been heavily correlated with heart diseases and it is always better to steer clear by providing proper food and indulging in regular exercise.
- Stress Management & Sleep Improvement: Diabetics need a good night’s sleep because the glucose uptake in the body increases during sleep. This helps remove excess glucose from the blood, keeping the blood sugar level to the optimal levels. Exercising can improve your mood and sleep patterns. Stress is another silent killer in the modern world. Studies have shown that stress can be a cumulative factor which contributes to blood sugar spikes. Exercising releases endorphins, keeping a thorough check on your hormonal balance. That is why daily exercise can help control blood sugar via stress management and sleep enhancement.
- Energy That Soars: Diabetic patients have been reported to be fatigued, thus, exercise is probably the best solution for them to keep up their energy. Exercising or daily regularised movements will allow you to stay active and prevent fatigue.
Factoring in all the aspects of a modern life, managing time to engage in a full scale workout might seem difficult at times. Hence, we have brought forth a list of the easiest exercises which can help you keep your blood sugar under check.The best part about these exercises is their easy integration into your diet and lifestyle. You would not require to go out of your normal way to bring these practices into your daily routine. Let us check a few of them out.
10 Best & Easiest Exercise To Lower Blood Sugar
By collectively understanding the needs of the average diabetic, we have curated this list of the top 10 exercises to manage blood sugar. A blend of a couple of these options can also be used in sync with your food habits and patterns.
None of these practices are intensive to your body or your regular routine. Our aim is to provide methods to keep blood sugar under control without affecting your whole life since diabetes primarily causes several lifestyle changes. Our aim is to help you avoid those changes by bringing on smaller reforms like these subtle exercises. Let us check them out.
Walking
A crisp and brisk method to keep oneself active, walking has been known as the age-old technique to control body weight, fatigue, muscle stiffness and a host of other conditions. Walking has always been recognised as a stellar method to keep a person’s health in check. In the case of blood sugar, walking can be a great way to get off the couch and start off with physical activity. Bringing yourself to workout for 30 mins at the gym might seem like a hefty task, however, taking a short and crisp walk would feel like a very easy way to stay in shape. Hence, it is more likely that you would start taking walks than hitting the gym.
Map out a routine and integrate brisk walks as a part of your fitness regime. The difference will be visible pretty quickly and evidently. Walking is an extremely accessible method of exercise since it hardly requires any apparatus and can be taken up by people of middle to late ages as well.
Water Aerobics
Another cool and exciting way to stay in shape while effectively bringing down blood sugar levels. Water aerobics is essentially performing aerobic exercises submerged under water. This is beneficial because it is a rather less strenuous exercise in comparison to its terrestrial counterpart, keeping it lighter on the joints. People well into their late 40s and 50s can also comfortably take up this practice and stay fit.
Water aerobics invigorates the joints and muscles of your body very potently, helping to control blood sugar levels and improve cardiovascular health. Water aerobics groups are great tunnel ways to learn the physical act and learning from within a group promotes a sense of camaraderie and let’s face it, you have fun!
Chair Exercises
Chair exercises are often very mild body movements to stretch and entice muscle groups that are prone to getting fatigued. Chair exercises have gained much popularity in the modern age since most urban job roles call for a sedentary lifestyle. These exercises are often so simple that the elderly can also take them up without putting in much effort.
Exercises that can be done with the help of a chair might seem simple, but they radically improve circulation, speeding up the natural process of blood sugar management in your body. Even though this technique might not heavily impact your blood sugar levels, chair exercises can surely keep other related risks like heart diseases, vascular issues, etc. at bay. Another aspect of chair exercise that positively impacts your wellbeing, chair exercises promote overall fitness which is a key factor for blood sugar control. This is therefore, a truly easy and effective way to keep your blood sugar under your own control.
Dance - Move Your Troubles Away!
Dance is probably the most fun entry on this list! Rhythmically moving your body to tunes can be a great exercise which enhances your metabolism by improving circulation, movement and hormone sensitivity.
Dancing has its roots deep into the heart of human civilization. We have been indulging in rhythmic movement, often in groups, to enjoy music while grooving to it! Join a dance class if you feel awkward dancing alone. Dancing will not only improve your health, it will also provide a sense of accomplishment and team spirit. There are several forms of dance each appealing to communal sentiments, so you can choose from hundreds of dance forms to choose the one that suits your taste.
Dancing alleviates joint health, circulation and other metabolic processes, while simultaneously increasing your insulin sensitivity. Dancing regularly will make you feel happier and lighter, improving your social life even as a diabetic. If all else fails, just get yourself a dance DVD and start off with those raunchy tunes, working your way up to more elegant forms of the art.
Yoga - A Practice Known For Its Roots
You have definitely heard of Yoga! If you haven’t, it is an oriental form of exercise which involves assuming and attaining physical positions that stretch and workout your muscles and bones. Yoga has been under the microscope for more than five decades and the results that were derived from this specific practice were exceptional. Yoga has visible results like better bodily performance and increased endurance, allowing you to cope with the harmful effects of diabetes easily.
Yoga brings down your adrenaline and cortisol, directly affecting your mood and blood glucose level. Your nerve health will also start getting better, letting you deal with the pain associated with diabetic neuropathy. Since yoga expressively improves your mood, it prevents overeating or emotional eating practices. You can explore more about the benefits of yoga and understand how it can be implemented in your life with better efficacy.
Tai Chi - Steadiness Builds Your Strength
Tai Chi is another age-old form of exercise which is known to enhance a person’s cardiovascular and skeletal functions. Tai Chi is also great for the muscles. In order to indulge into the practice of Tai Chi one must slowly move their body and members, as per instructions, to exercise muscles, groups and joints. Tai Chi is a great exercise for diabetics in general since it can be taken up by any age group.
Tai Chi is the perfect way to give your body the right amount of exercise without working it out too hard. Diabetics can easily overcome the issues that come with the ailment like fatigue, energy loss, appetite loss, etc. with a slow moving exercise form which also entices a person’s inner aesthetics. Tai Chi practice has been associated with great benefits in case of type 2 diabetes. It has been known for core strengthening, which also allows you to engage into various other physical acts.
One of the most invigorating benefits of tai chi is that it improves balance and self control. It is a wholesome practice, involving both mind and body. Keeping a regular practice of tai chi will surely help you reap benefits like reduced blood sugar levels, reduced stress, better balance and much more. Diabetics who are at risk of falling down, can try out this amazing practice to avoid hurting themselves.
Strength Training - Going A Bit Towards The Tough End!
Knowing fitness enthusiasts and their beliefs, keeping strength training off this list would have been unfair to them. Strength training has unparalleled benefits in making you a stronger person as a whole. Having more strength allows you to live an active life which is absolutely necessary for individuals with diabetes.
The benefits of strength training are innumerable. However, to speak of a few of them. Strength training increases your body’s capacity to produce the GLUT4 protein, boosting your natural glucose absorption. Strength training practices include lifting weights, intensive muscle exercises and muscle building practices. It also helps you keep your weight under a scrutinous check helping your body to cope better with erratic blood sugar levels.
A passive advantage of strength training is that it raises your resting metabolic rate, that means you continue to burn more calories and utilise more sugar from your blood even while resting. This can be of immense help for people with both type 2 and type 1 diabetes. By improving various health markers, strength training also lowers the risk of diabetes-related complications.
Cycling - Another Fun Way to Burn Sugar!
Ever since the dawn of the mechanical cycle, its benefits to the human body have been speculated, studied and concluded upon. Cycling radically improves circulation, keeps blood pressure regulated, increases your insulin sensitivity and much more. Cycling works well because it is a kind of exercise that requires you to use the majority of your joints and muscle groups. Even though it should be very straining, cycling has a very fun aspect to it. You can choose to ride your bike in the evenings to get a gust of fresh air while exercising your body efficiently.
Studies show that cycling brings down the level of harmful cholesterol in your blood, while increasing the amount of good cholesterol simultaneously. Cycling has been prolifically used across the globe to enjoy, travel and train intensively, without feeling the brunt of it. Just get yourself a bike and start off on a journey to controlled sugar levels while reconnecting with the world that we all live in.
Pilates
A relatively urban practice, Pilates, has been recently making waves in the western world for its extremely beneficial yet simple practice. Pilates is a structured system of comprehensive exercises which gets more challenging as you keep on doing it. It was initially a physical system used by dancers to recover from injuries, but the proficiency of the system caught the eyes of countless health enthusiasts who adapted it into their lifestyle. Since then, pilates has been widely used for its health benefits, especially for diabetics who need a rather lighter way to lose calories and burn glucose. Pilates can be really efficient at that.
Pilates is a low impact exercise form which makes it perfect for people of all kinds of fitness levels to start with. Pilates can help an individual understand their body and system more retrospectively, allowing diabetics to understand their blood sugar fluctuations beforehand. Stress, one of the common contributors to blood sugar spikes, can also be managed efficiently through pilates.
Gardening - The Wild Card Entry!
Though gardening is traditionally not seen as a form of exercise, gardening has several upsides to it both physically and mentally. Gardening is more than an exercise, it can touch your heart as a hobby, which instantly makes this practice easy to continue with. Gardening involves several physical activities which promote health, plus being close to plants has a benefit of its own.
When gardening becomes a regular habit, it promotes a sense of accomplishment, alleviating negative thoughts or depression, which is also pretty common among late stage diabetics. Moreover, this practice can be taken up by any person. Whilst digging, weeding and ploughing, are activities which entice your body, plant selection, colour variations, etc. call out to your artistic end. Diabetics who have had a fulfilling life in the world of media, might actually enjoy gardening at a late age. Apart from the benefits that it has for the body, it can also help you avoid fatigue, unwanted thoughts and other inequalities that you might tend to overthink.
Stay Active & Away From High Blood Sugar!
Blood sugar issues have been a bane to modern society, inflicting a serious condition to millions across the globe. Exercising is one of the best lifestyle measures that can truly help individuals stay fit even at the face of an adversity like diabetes. It is our star-studded recommendation to all people, whether they are diabetic or not, to indulge in physical activity to keep their bodies fit. As a diabetic, we know that activity can seem like a challenge on some days, however, these light low impact exercise forms can be used in amalgamation to give you a proper fitness routine which manages your blood sugar level too!