Welcome back to another episode of health hacks

as I continue talking about stress and how it impacts our

health and longevity, and I'm into the fourth week of this

topic, the fourth and final week. So if you haven't seen the

previous episodes, please do go back and check out this series,

which started at episode number 445 and we are now up to episode

number 454 and today I want to talk to you about the fact that

stress hormones can cause insulin resistance, increasing

your risk of type two diabetes. And I see this in lab results

all the time. I have this really wonderful lab which shows me all

four sex hormones, all four cortisol markers through the

day, all four thyroid markers, both fasted and 90 day, insulin

markers and vitamin D. And the body is all interconnected, and

so having all of this information in one place is

really important, because we can see how cortisol is impacting

our ability to sleep well at night. From that lab, we can see

how our cortisol levels are impacting our hormonal balance,

and therefore symptoms that we are having. We know that when

our hormones get out of balance, our sex hormones, particularly

for women, estrogen and progesterone, that then starts

to slow our thyroid and impact our thyroid health, and it will

also impact our insulin markers and put us at risk of type two

diabetes. And nobody wants that. And so what can you do about it?

Well, in each episode, I've been giving you a tip of a way that

you can be choosing to lower your stress, because there's

many ways that we can do that, and not every way works for

every person. However, one way that can be very beneficial that

people may not even think about is lowering our caffeine and

sugar intake. Reducing the consumption of stimulants will

actually lower our levels of stress and anxiety. And sugar is

highly inflammatory. It puts stress on the body, and we get

hopped up. I've seen that in my own kids. Some people are very

sensitive to sugar, and it can get us all hopped up, and then

we crash. And caffeine can have the same effect on us, and it

causes that roller coaster ride, which is very similar to the

roller coaster ride that we have with insulin. And so when we

reduce those from our diet, it starts to reduce those roller

coaster rides on our body, calm our heart rate, calm our levels

of anxiety, and therefore lower our risk of negative side

effects of things like the increasing the risk of type two

diabetes. So how much sugar are you ingesting every day? How

much caffeine are you surviving on every day? Are you going to

caffeine for energy and for survival, because you're feeling

exhausted, and if you are, that could also be a clue that

perhaps you're deficient in your minerals. And when we adjust

your mineral levels and bring your body up to being sufficient

rather than deficient, you have the energy that you need, and

you don't need to be surviving on caffeine and sugar to get you

through the day, something to think about.