Balancing Act: A Blueprint for Managing Stress and Diabetes Together

Strap in for a riveting journey with me, Dr. Dwain Woode, as we tackle the often misunderstood nexus of diabetes and stress and how mastering this connection can transform your health. Imagine the sheer power of your body's stress response, akin to the adrenaline surge I experienced during a high-stakes white-water rafting escapade, a story I'll share in vivid detail. This episode peels back the layers of managing diabetes through the lens of our body's innate physiological fireworks, presenting strategies to dial back insulin levels and ramp up sensitivity with a nod to the surprising benefits of fasting.

As we recount the heart-pounding rafting adventure, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat, learning about the body's impressive stress response mechanisms—hormonal spikes giving you near superhuman strength in peril. Yet, these exact mechanisms, when fired too often, can wreak havoc, leading to ulcers and even fertility challenges. We'll dissect the stages of stress response, from alarm to exhaustion, unraveling the science behind why your heart races and you become hyper-alert and the implications these reactions have on chronic conditions like diabetes.

Moving beyond the thrills, I'll guide you through crafting an arsenal of stress management tools to bolster your well-being and keep your blood sugar in check. We'll discuss the art of problem-solving and how taking a structured approach to life's hurdles can significantly lower stress-induced health risks. By embracing practices like meditation and exercise, you'll learn to channel stress constructively. Join me, Dr. Dwain Woode, as we empower you with the knowledge to navigate the choppy waters of stress and diabetes, ensuring a smoother sail toward optimal health.

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Transcript

Dwain Woode: 0:00

If you have been paying attention and seeing what's going on around the country and around the world in terms of health, then you know that diabetes is one of those diseases that continues to plague us Over 460 million people around the world 37 million in the United States alone that suffer from diabetes. And here in this space, the quest for this year is how do we put diabetes and remission, how do we get off of the medication? And in this episode, we're gonna talk about stress and its effect on blood sugars. That's right, stress has an effect on blood sugars. And here in this space, because we want to put your diabetes and remission, because we want to reverse diabetes, we're gonna spend some time tonight talking about how stress and the hormones in our body affects our blood sugar. If you're new to me, I'm Dr Dwain Woode, that's Wood with an E the E stands for endocrinology. Here on the channel, I educate, I empower and I encourage you to take charge of your health, your life, avoid complications and go to the next level. We're creating the life we've always wanted and in this year 2024, our new theme is New Year, new you MUSIC. So what's been our path so far? Over the course of the last month we've done several shows and on our channel you'll see those shows there, starting with the very first show that we did. What are the first steps to really take charge of your health? How do we get ourselves ready? We introduce fasting as one of those key components that we're gonna be using throughout this year.

Dwain Woode: 1:56

Y'all we talked about which diabetes medications you should initially talk to your doctor. By getting off, we talked about some medications that you may want to discuss. By getting on, we talked about some of those medications that suppress the appetite. Then we had a discussion about how do we go about adjusting those medications, bringing them down and then, last week, how to navigate our triggers as we move into. What are we gonna do? How do we get this moving? How do we get this going? The key thought that we have had is that diabetes is really not a sugar problem. The blood sugars that we have are consequences of whatever the underlying problem is with our diabetes. The underlying problem, as you guys remember, is insulin. We're talking specifically to adults with type 2 diabetes.

Dwain Woode: 2:48

Insulin, because of the nature of what it does, it has an effect on so many other parts of the body. So, while insulin is a potent lowerer of blood sugar. It also has the ability to make you hungry. It has the ability to make you put on weight, retain weight. It has problems or implications in fatty liver disease, a metabolic syndrome, obesity, a high blood pressure, and on and on and on. And so our goal in all that we do is first of all, to suppress the insulin or decrease the amount of insulin that we're taking in, which was why we talked about those medications that were secretagogues that forced the body, or makes the body, make insulin. We also talked about decreasing the amount of total insulin that we're taking.

Dwain Woode: 3:36

Insulin in the body is a normal hormone. It does what it's supposed to do at the levels that the body normally makes. It is when that insulin level begins to rise that then not only does it now help to manage blood sugar, but it starts to have significant implications in the other things that it's doing. You know, we always think that if a little bit of something is good, then more of it is better, not necessarily with insulin. As we start to get higher and higher levels of insulin, we start to see the complications that come from the elevated amounts of insulin. So our goal is always decreasing the amount of insulin that we're taking, in, decreasing the amount of medications that force our bodies to make insulin. Those are the secretagogues. And then how do we, in the body itself, handle the amount of insulin that it is making so that it becomes more sensitive? And so one of the things that we're gonna be talking about tonight is that exact process. The body is a very smart system, and your body's job, its function, is to keep you alive, and so the body will do everything that it can to keep you alive and in that space. So, as we talk about stress, we talked last week about habits, emotions, access and taste the emotion component most of those are stress. So what's going on in stress? What happens in stress is that your body goes through hormonal and the physiologic changes. That gets it ready to handle the stress.

Dwain Woode: 5:12

Let me back up and let me tell you a story. So I went on a whitewater rafting trip. My son is a big basketball fan, so we went to see the Charlotte Hornets play the Denver Nuggets, and so we were over there. We've got this bucket list that we're working on, and so, anyway. So we went out, and so, while we were there, somebody in my house convinced me that we should go whitewater rafting as part of this trip. So I went whitewater rafting and we sat and we watched the little video that they showed, the one where they say if you anything happens, we're not responsible. So you watch the video, you sign the piece of paper and you went and you put on all the life jackets, life vests, you got the helmet and all the stuff, and so now we're in the raft, y'all, and I'm watching the video. I saw the video and I put on the stuff and I'm sitting in the raft and I'm thinking to myself what are the chances that I'm gonna be the one that falls out of the raft? Oh yeah, never say that to yourself, because, guess what, you're going to be the one that falls out.

Dwain Woode: 6:21

So we're there, and so the the raft master, he's back there, and so we've got I think it was four people on one side, four people on the other side and so we're going over these rapids and, as he's calling, you're supposed to dig in with your oar. And so we're going and we're going and we get to this one spot and we go over the rocks and we come down and there's a little kind of whirlpool right after you get over the rocks and we kind of got stuck. He's like pull, pull, and so we're pulling, the rapids are going, and so we're in this whirlpool between a bunch of rocks. By the way, the goal is to kind of pull until you get over the rocks and then, once you get over those, this next set of rocks, then you get into kind of a more calm area of this river that we were on and we tried to get up and we made it a halfway up and we came back down, and so now he's okay, guys, we're going to have to dig in. And we went and we started rowing.

Dwain Woode: 7:22

The guy on the front where I was, he actually lost his row and he started to fall out. And as he started to fall out, our raft kind of tilted to the side that we're on. I'm the last one on that side and as the raft went up, he fell out and everybody's trying to help him and I'm in the back and the raft is almost on its side, and so I fall out. Not an issue yet, right? But then what happened? They said to grab on to the perimeter rope. So I grab onto the perimeter rope, except that, remember, we're still in this area where it's swirling. And so I ended up under the raft. Do you know what's under a raft? That's in water, no air.

Dwain Woode: 8:09

And so in that entire process you can imagine my heart is beating and my blood pressure probably went up and my blood sugars we're probably going up. In that instance it made sense for my blood sugar to go up, it made sense for my blood pressure to go up. It made sense for my eyes to constrict, it made sense for my body to pump a lot of sugar into me because I needed it, and that is called the stress response. But when that response is prolonged then it starts to cause issues for the body. There are three phases or three stages of stress alarm, then there's the resistance stage and then the exhaustion stage. Now, prior to the resistance exhaustion, let's talk about the alarm. So the alarm phase the nervous system is awakened. So you fall out of the raft.

Dwain Woode: 9:00

You are in a car accident, someone, you're walking down the street and you see someone that looks shady up in front of you. You're at home and you hear a noise. Automatically the body goes into alert. So there's a part of the brain called the amygdala and the amygdala says and is that part that is responsible for our interpretation, right? So fear. And the amygdala says, hey, I see something, or I hear something, or I smell something, I smell fire, right. So the amygdala says, hey, there's something going on. And it sends a signal to the rest of the body. And it actually sends two signals it sends a nervous system signal and it also sends a hormonal signal, right. So, nervous system and hormonal system, the amygdala. And in the process of sending those signals, then the body begins looking for and preparing for that particular issue that you're seeing. Right? So, you'll see, there, as part of the brain, right, that amygdala and that's there in the back, sends a signal to a part of the brain called the hypothalamus, and the hypothalamus is. Everybody talks about the pituitary as the regulator of hormones, but the hypothalamus really is the big boss. And so hypothalamus says, hey, pituitary, I need you to send a signal to the adrenal. And because we need some cortisol those are the stress hormones cortisol, epinephrine.

Dwain Woode: 10:35

And, if you guys remember, one of my favorite, one of my favorite shows and one of my favorite superheroes was the Incredible Hulk, david Banner. So he was irradiated and now, whenever he got upset, he turned into this big, green, powerful, strong quote unquote monster, as people call them. What happened to David Banner was that his adrenals that part of the body that produced stress hormones. Whenever his adrenals began releasing hormones, he released an abnormal amount and abnormal functioning hormone and so he became this great big green guy. But that's what stress hormones do. Stress hormones are the hormones that come out.

Dwain Woode: 11:22

You know, someone gets into a car accident and they've broken a leg, y'all in the accident, or they've broken an arm, or they've been injured in the accident, and they get out of the car and they go over and they help somebody else who was in the accident as well. And it's not until they calm down that they realize oh my God, my arm hurts. You know why they were able to do that? Because of adrenaline, because of stress hormones, because stress hormones have the ability to give energy to handle whatever it is. It is why. It is why the lion chases the zebra and the lion hungry, but the zebra gets away. Why? Because the zebra's adrenaline hits into or shoots into high gear and the zebra's adrenaline produces a bunch of hormones and the zebra's muscles are now awake, awakened and the zebra takes off and the zebra is gone. So the lion's now hungry.

Dwain Woode: 12:23

It's why you hear those stories of of apparently superhuman ability. You know, mom is sitting on a stoop in the city and she's watching as her kid is playing, playing on the sidewalk or on the street, and something happens and a truck or a car runs the red light and hops the sidewalk and is heading towards her child. And mom has this superhuman strength and speed and she dashes over, grabs the kid away and saves the child from getting hit by the car. How was she able to do that? Because of stress hormone. They give us that ability to function.

Dwain Woode: 13:01

So the body senses stress, the amygdala sends a signal to the hypothalamus. Hypothalamus says hey, body, I need you now to start working, so I'm going to get you ready. I'm sending a signal to the adrenal so I need some cortisol, I need some stress hormones. And I'm sending a signal to the rest of the body. These are nervous system responses and we'll talk about both those here in a minute. So that's how the stress response works. And then the body is able to get you through whatever the stress is, get you away from the danger, and then what's supposed to happen is that the danger, once it's gone, your body begins to now calm down again. That's a normal stress response, y'all. Okay, that's how it's supposed to work. And the parts of the body that do that, as I've been mentioning the pituitary, the adrenals you don't need to know all of that right now, but we'll come back and talk a little bit more about those.

Dwain Woode: 13:59

So how is the stress response activated? As I said, you have a perception of fear. You see a lion, you hear a noise in the night, or you see someone who's dangerous, or you're at the edge of a cliff and you look over and you're like, oh, my goodness right. So there's the perception that gets sent to the brain. The brain sends a response to the hypothalamus and the hypothalamus says, hey, I need cortisol, I need stress hormones. And hey, sympathetic system. Hey, I need you to do some things. Now let's talk through those.

Dwain Woode: 14:32

Well, what happens in the sympathetic system? Well, your heart rate goes up. Why does your heart rate go up? Why does your heart rate go up? Because your heart rate has your body has to now send more energy throughout the system. So the heart has to move faster so that the energy that now is being produced in the body can flow around to all the muscles, to your eyes, to your heart, to your lungs. So the heart rate has to go up. Your blood pressure has to go up. Why does the blood pressure have to go up? Because now we've got to force the blood to go where it needs to go Right we're we're heightening. The blood pressure has to go up. Your eyes, right, will constrict. Why do eyes constrict? Because you've got to see farther now Than where you are, because I need to get over there, not stay right here.

Dwain Woode: 15:20

So all these physiologic things are going on in the body to begin moving us in the direction, and then cortisol goes out. And cortisol is the thing that says, hey, I need to get some energy right. And the energy part is what we're gonna. We're gonna spend some time actually talking through as we go through, go through this discussion. All right, all right, that makes sense. So that is the activation of the stress response. So, and then there you know here, these physiologic changes. So release, release adrenaline. We release cortisol. Those are the two hormones. We mobilize glucose yeah, that's the one right there, guys.

Dwain Woode: 16:00

And then we suppress non-essential functions. Let's, let's go backwards. We're gonna start with suppressing non-essential function. Well, what are non-essential functions? Well, if I'm running from a lion, I don't need to digest food, so the body turns off digestion. If I'm running from a lion, I don't need to Bear children, I don't need to reproduce, so the body shuts down the reproductive system. The body shuts down sperm production. It shuts down Ovulation.

Dwain Woode: 16:30

If I'm running from a lion, right, I don't need to remember that my wife and my kid is at home Waiting for me to come home for dinner Right, I need to get away from the line. I don't need to be thinking about them right now. So the body, the cortisol that comes out, decreases memory. I don't need that. For my hair to grow on my arms, I don't need for my skin To grow, I don't need for my nails to grow, so all of those things that are not essential, the body shuts down.

Dwain Woode: 17:00

Now. That's gonna be important for us here in a minute when we come back to talk about chronic stress. Now we're talking about just the initial. You know, you see something wrong. You're in the stress response and the body's dealing with it and that is great in the short term when it becomes a problem Is in the long term, right, when it becomes chronic. Okay, so we shut down all the things that we don't need right now. That's why, when people are stressed, they get ulcers because the body shuts down or diverts blood from the GI track, from the Digestion, because right now I don't need to digest food. So all the blood that's normally going into my GI tract gets shunted to my heart, to my lungs, to my muscles. And if that's the case, what happens to the lining of the stomach if it doesn't have enough Energy, if it doesn't have enough Blood? Well, it breaks down and people develop ulcers.

Dwain Woode: 17:58

If I'm stressed, I don't need hair. So during stress, people lose their hair, their nails become brittle, their skin becomes dry, women lose menstrual cycles, men become a, their sperm count goes down. Notice, all of those are not essential during a stressful time. In the initial, acute setting, that's great, because I can utilize that energy for something else. But long term, I want to be able to have hair, I want my skin to be nice and soft, I Want to have nice nails, I want to have children. But if we're in a stressful situation, that doesn't happen.

Dwain Woode: 18:43

So so you start to see the connection and then the question, and so, once again, these are just other things that you will see that go on with blood sugars. Right, these are other items that you will see. Well, not blood sugars, but we're in the stress, in the stress response, right. So, on the we talked about the eyes, right, constricting the pupils of sorry, dilating pupils dilate because you got to see far. Your heart rate goes up, right, your adrenals are producing hormones. Your stomach slows because you don't need to digest anything, so. So all of those issues that you see that a lot of times people will have when they're in, when they're, when they're stressed, are a natural consequence, and it is the body trying to protect itself and conserve the energy that it needs. So what are some metabolic changes that are caused by stress, and this is where we're gonna spend some time.

Dwain Woode: 19:44

So, number one when cortisol comes out, cortisol's job is to find energy in the body. That's, that's the job, that's the function of cortisol. It says it goes into the body and it says, hey, I need to get more energy. And so it starts to break down the glycogen that's in your liver so it can use it for sugar. So blood sugar goes up. So why does blood sugar initially go up? Because your body needs more energy. You're getting ready to run, you saw something, you heard something, something that's scary. And the body saying, hey, you know, to deal with this I've got to get energy. So it goes into, finds energy and it raises your blood sugar.

Dwain Woode: 20:26

Cortisol, when it comes out, suppresses insulin. Because what's insulin's job? Insulin's job is to decrease blood sugar. Well, if I am running, I don't want my blood sugar to go down. I want to keep my blood sugar as high as possible so I can access all of the sugar that's available to me. So not only does the body the cortisol, the stress response say hey, let me find some sugar, raise the blood sugar. Now Let me suppress the insulin so my blood sugar doesn't go down, right? So two birds right there. And then I think I'm gonna need more energy. So now let me go find some additional energy.

Dwain Woode: 21:10

So it starts breaking down the fat cells. Now everybody thinks that that's a good thing. But no, it's not a good thing, right? Not in the long term. So it takes the fat cells. It breaks them down into what are called glycerol and Free fatty acids, the glycerol. Glycerol gets converted to sugar. So once again, that's the third place where sugar goes up.

Dwain Woode: 21:37

So first we break down glycogen, then we suppress the insulin. Now we're breaking down fat and we're making sugar from the fat. And if I'm I got these two components right, I got the free fatty acids and I've got the glycerol. Where do you think the free fatty acids go? So now we've got fatty acids floating around the blood Right now they can cause damage. And then the body says, maybe I need more energy. So now it starts to break down proteins and those proteins and those proteins become amino acids. Those amino acids cause us to produce more sugar. So I want you to watch that progression. We found sugar Right, breaking down the glycogen. Then we suppressed the insulin so that the sugar doesn't go down. Then we broke down fat and created Some glucose. And then we broke down protein and created some glucose.

Dwain Woode: 22:35

So at every stage, right there, the body's job is to find energy to keep you going. Now that's wonderful, and what's supposed to happen is when the, when the acute issue goes away, when you get away from the lion, when you are out of the car accident, when the intruder is no longer there, your body is supposed to now calm down the stress. Hormones go down, your heart rate goes down Right, your eyes constrict again, your lungs are, you're not breathing as fast when the cortisol goes down. The cortisol stops breaking down protein. The blood sugar goes down. It stops breaking down fat. Blood sugar goes down. It makes the insulin that your body produces more sensitive, so the blood sugar goes down. And it stops breaking down glycogen, so the blood sugar goes down.

Dwain Woode: 23:34

Now here's the kicker. Y'all you want to hear it? You ready for it? The kicker is this that the body responds to a real threat in the same way as it responds to a perceived. Let me say that again, the body responds to a real threat if there's actually a lion sitting standing running in front of you. If you're in a car accident and you break an arm, break a leg, you have an injury. If an intruder comes into your house, an actual person there with you, your body will go through the response, the stress response. But it responds the same way. If you convince yourself that the fact that you didn't study for that exam means the end of the world, the body responds the same way. You have an argument with your husband, your wife, your brother, your sister, right, a co-worker. You go into work every morning and you dread going in. The body responds the same way as if it's so a lion. The same exact physiologic processes go on. The same neurologic processes go on. That's why people say man, I was so nervous that my stomach started churning.

Dwain Woode: 25:03

I had a lady who, um, she had one of these monitors that I have. Well, actually she didn't have a monitor first, but her blood sugars were high and we put a monitor on her and every morning we'd see a big spike. I forgot what time it was, but it wasn't the dawn phenomenon spike, it was like later in the morning. And so she comes in and we saw the spike, saw the spike. And one day I said to her I said what happens at 10 o'clock, and I'm just using 10 o'clock, it wasn't 10 o'clock, I can't remember the exact time. I said what happens at 10 o'clock and she says, oh, joe comes in and I'm just using Joe, it's not the real person, right? So her and Joe were so, um, she didn't like working with Joe Whenever Joe came in. It was stressful for her. And just right before this coworker of hers came in, where she had to spend the entire day with them, we saw the blood sugars rise and they stayed there until she left work.

Dwain Woode: 26:07

The power of stress. So the body responds in exactly the same way, whether it's a, whether it's a perceived stress, perceived danger, or whether it's a real danger. And the issue is that we spend so much of our time in perceived stress We've convinced ourselves that this particular thing is a danger, is a stressful event, and because we always have this tonic level of stress, then the blood sugars are a little higher. And if the blood sugars are higher, y'all guess what has to happen. So we talked about the acute phase. Right, the acute phase is you see, you see some stressor, your body responds, produces sugar. You, you know, run away from the line. You get away from the line and good, and everything kind of comes back down. Well, what happens if you're always there and now adapts to that, and so the blood sugars are a little higher than they should be, your insulin doesn't work as well as it should. You're breaking down these fat cells and you're creating sugar and free fatty acids. And now your cholesterol goes up. And what do you think happens to the free fatty acids? They go into the liver, they become non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. And if you're stressed, the blood sugars get the high rise higher and higher and the insulin is less able to manage it. So you develop diabetes because there's this constant tonic stress.

Dwain Woode: 27:39

Oh, and man, wait a minute, I didn't talk about one of the things after you recover from stress, right? So you saw a lion, you ran from the lion, you got away from the lion, right? A cute event In that process. Right after you got away from the lion, what does your body do? The body says, hey, I just used up a lot of energy, so I have to now go replenish the energy. And how does it replenish the energy? It makes you eat. That's why, a lot of times, people go through a stressful event, stressful time, and they eat because the body is trying to replenish the energy that it thinks they burned during the event. Well, if you're always there, you're always in the stressful event, always producing cortisol, always producing epinephrine, then you are always hungry. You guys see that progression.

Dwain Woode: 28:45

So our goal, then, our goal is to manage stress. Notice, I say not eliminate, because we can't always eliminate stress. Now, if you have a job that you don't like, you can leave the job, great, but not everybody can do that. We cannot change the event, we cannot change the stressful situation, but we could change our response to it. And notice, I said, the body responds to real threats and perceived threats in the same way. And when I come back, we're going to talk about how we manage that here in just a minute. Let's see who we got out there.

Dwain Woode: 29:32

So Key says wow, that is deep. Yeah, key, this is. This stuff. Right here is we don't talk much about this response as it comes to diabetes. You kind of do a cursory pay, you know, manage your stress, get some sleep and so forth. But to really understand what it is we do to ourselves in the stressful event, in the stressful times, that's a whole nother conversation. Teresa says that explains everything. Doctor, oh, my goodness, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, teresa, isn't it amazing? Yeah, I, I Now, so let's, let me, let me jump in here and let me add right, let me make a connection.

Dwain Woode: 30:26

You guys remember we talked about the H E a T, right, h E a T that we did last week, and that is our acronym for the true, the categories of triggers that push us to eat beyond hunger. Right, remember, we eat because of habits, we eat because of emotions, we eat because of access and we eat because of taste. Yeah, so in that E the emotions, there are so many things that that we're going to have to come back and do like shows about some of that stuff, right so so. Emotions, right so so. Any so, not just your. Oh, I'm feeling sad. I mean sad, happy, glad, sad, happy, glad, mad, anxious, disappointed, tired, and we can go on and on, and on, and on, and on and on and on, and every little bit adds up. So our goal is how do we deal with as many of these as possible, because if we can do that, that's one less place where our blood sugars rise and we're going to come back and we're going to talk about what that means. Okay, all right.

Dwain Woode: 31:50

And Tatiana, hey, tatiana, welcome, I'm glad that you are here hanging out with us. I saw you were on a show recently. I haven't watched it yet, but, yay, Okay, I'm going to get out there and watch it. Guys, if you've not watched Tatiana, she is amazing. She was on our show a little over a year ago and thank you for coming through and hanging out with us. And so, talking about shows, there is one that I do want to, I do want to plug. This past weekend, or this past Friday, I was on a, um, I was on a show that I want to say to you. If you've not seen, if you've not watched, I do want you to go over and support them. And it is uh, let's see how do I do that. Okay, here it is. It is a show, it is round table and it is with uh three amazing uh pastors who are actually pastoring, um and and uh, I was on there with Dr Columbus Batiste, who is a cardiologist, and we were talking about, uh, this is black history month, of course, and so we were talking about the effect of um, the heritage of African Americans, uh, the effect of that on their health.

Dwain Woode: 33:22

Right, if you? If you know, uh, the history of African Americans during the time of slavery, the foods that they were given, the foods that were eaten, the recipes that were created, the ways of uh preparing food and eating, were a direct results, or direct result of the things that uh they were given and the conditions that they found themselves in. And so today, as we eat, it is a um, it is a history that has been passed down in terms of flavors and the types of foods and, as we've been talking about, food has such an amazing ability to heal, but it also has an amazing and detrimental ability to cause disease. And so Dr Columbus Batiste and I were guests on the show with these amazing uh gentlemen, as we talked about, um, the, the effect of food, um, the effect of slave food on the culture and on the um, on the way we eat and on diseases. So, please go over there, uh, support them. Um, like the show, share it with your family, with your friends. Um, it was an amazing conversation. Uh, we were hoping to get back with them and do some additional things, but right now, I want you, as our, as our viewers, as our community, uh to support, uh, support what they're doing. Uh, and then, of course, I was on the show and when you, if you go over there, when you go over there I'm not going to say, if I want you to put hashtag Dwain Woode MD, so they know that you are one of our um, one of our community members, um, that you've coming up, you're coming over and that you are supporting them. Okay, and so that was Friday, uh, the black history, and um, uh, so black history, uh, month is, uh, the series that they're doing and uh, like I said, it was an amazing conversation that we had over there. Thank you, all right, um, all right, so let's talk a little bit. Uh, let's hop back over. I remember, guys, if you have questions, I can touch you and this is a whole of my pleasure. Uh, if you do have questions, go ahead and pop those in the chat. Uh, let us know, uh, that you're there. Put a Q in front of the question and we will uh be sure to get to those. If you're watching this on the replay right now, put hashtag replay and, of course, I want you to make sure that you are sharing with your family and friends what we're doing on the channel. All right, so so let's, let's, let's bring it home, let's bring it home. Let me back up, let me recap.

Dwain Woode: 35:58

Our goal is to reverse diabetes. We're talking specifically adults with type two diabetes, adults with type two diabetes. We want to reverse it. We want to decrease the amount of medication that you're taking. We want to help to make you healthier. If you are here and you're watching and you say, wait a minute, I'm not diabetic, so this doesn't apply to me, I hold it, don't, don't, don't go away yet, because the things that we talk about for our diabetics we're talking about decreasing insulin, the issues that we have with high blood pressure, with weight issues, polycystic ovarian syndrome, metabolic syndrome, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, people who are at risk for coronary artery disease, people who are at risk for strokes. All of that ties into insulin. That's why I keep saying the numbers 462 million people around the world with diabetes. That's just y'all the people with diabetes. We're not talking about the people with pre-diabetes or the people who are obese or the people who have polycystic ovarian syndrome. If we can decrease our insulin, then all of those diseases get better. So while we're talking to the diabetic, specifically because we're reversing, don't negate what we're discussing, because it has direct application to you as well. Okay, all right, so what do we do? What do we do? What do we do y'all? What do we do?

Dwain Woode: 37:40

You can't change the situation that you're in. Sometimes, like if you got a job and it is the place where you make your living and you're supporting your family, you can't walk in tomorrow. I mean, I suppose you could, but very few of us will be able to walk in tomorrow and say you know what? You guys are stressing me out, so I'm gone. If you're in a relationship that's causing stress, sometimes it's difficult to leave the relationship. You have a child. You have a mom or a dad who is ill or not doing the things that you think they should be doing. That causes stress. You can't just all of a sudden just disappear from the child. I suppose you could. You shouldn't. But how do we respond to those things? I'm sure you know someone who seems like man. Nothing ever bothers them Like. They seem to have it all together.

Dwain Woode: 38:45

The question is how can we have two people that find themselves in the same situation and one responds with significant stress and the other one does not? And the reason that can happen is it because it's all in our personalities and in how we have been raised and taught and how we experience the world? I want to say that again. There are some of us who have a natural personality that is more anxious than others. It is a given fact, right? You tend to be a little bit more anxious than someone else. That's not a problem. It is just your bent. That is how you are. So don't let anybody convince you that because you are a little bit more anxious than other people, that there's something wrong with you. That's just how you are Now. What you do with that is a different story, right. So that's one.

Dwain Woode: 39:54

And then a lot of us were brought up in situations where we were never taught to manage stress and handle stress. We were never taught coping mechanisms. We were never taught ways to evaluate and to make decisions. We were never taught how to evaluate problems and come up with solutions. So when we find ourselves in a stressful situation, it's like we're shooting in the air. Right, everything is a guess game and guessing causes people to be anxious. Right, it's kind of like in marketing and in sales. They say a confused mind does not purchase. Think about it. You go into the store, right, and you know you want a particular thing. And you get in there and they have like three different ones that you don't know how to evaluate them. What do you do? A lot of times, most of us wouldn't buy anything. We say, okay, I'll decide that later, and they leave. Same thing.

Dwain Woode: 40:49

When we find ourselves in stressful situations, if we don't have a mechanism for how we manage stress, how we solve issues, how we solve problems, we don't have a way to evaluate, then we are confused and it becomes stressful. So a lot of us were never taught, we never learned the mechanisms that we needed to begin coping, and then a lot of us don't have a place not necessarily to evaluate and learn to cope, but we don't have a place to release the stress. We're always going, we're always on the grind, we're always running, and if you find yourself always doing that, then that itself causes stress. So let's back up and let's go through those again. So, number one if you find yourself in a situation where you are stressed and you say, okay, this is just how I am, I'm just a naturally anxious person, then the question that you've got to ask is what do you have to put in place? What do you have to put in place to begin releasing some of that stress? It is how you are, it is your bent, it is your personality.

Dwain Woode: 42:17

But is there a way to mitigate? Is there a way to allow yourself to process things in a way that it does not add additional stress? Because once again, once you had the stress, guess what happens? Cortisol comes out and cortisol's job is to raise those blood sugars. And if we raise the blood sugar, the body has to produce insulin to bring that blood sugar down, right? So how do I mitigate? What do I need to do so I don't add additional stress?

Dwain Woode: 42:51

If you find yourself always stressed whenever some issue comes up, a interpersonal relationship issue, something on the job you've got to make a decision about a house that you're buying, or a shirt that you want to buy, or a book that you want to read, or a class that you're in, hey, it sounds like you don't have a structure, a form, a way to make decisions and evaluate where you are and come up with solutions. So now, this is okay. Where do I go to learn how to manage, how to organize, how to problem solve? Notice the distinction between those two. One, hey, what do I need to do so I don't add additional stress? What do I need to do to become more organized, so I have a structure in how to manage and deal with and come up with solutions? And then if you find yourself, hey, I'm not an anxious person and I do have a way of coming up with solutions. I'm very methodical, I have the ability to look and come up with a solution, but I still find myself stressed.

Dwain Woode: 43:59

What do you have in place to release the stress? Do you meditate, do you journal, do you exercise, do you do yoga? What are you doing to mitigate, to release? Because if you don't release. Well, guess what? It's all building up and it's all growing. And because we're in that tonic blood sugar's, a higher blood sugar's, a higher insulin is higher insulin comes out and insulin causes all the issues that we just discussed. This is Dr Dwain Woode, that's Wood Within E the E stands for endocrinology. Here on the channel, I educate, I empower and I encourage you to take charge of your health, take charge of your life, avoid complications and go to the next level, creating the life you always wanted. And for this year, y'all, new year, new year </fontarme you.