How to Lower Morning Blood Sugar Without Medication (2024)

Your fasting blood sugar, sometimes called your morning blood sugar, is the amount of glucose (sugar) in your blood after not eating for eight to 10 hours. It offers a more accurate picture of how well you are managing your blood sugar in the absence of food.

There are several ways to naturally control your fasting blood sugar If you have diabetes. These can be especially useful if you find that your morning blood sugar levels are suddenly high and don't know why.

With the right dietary and lifestyle changes, your fasting blood sugar should be well within the optimal range when you test in the morning. These include exercising regularly, managing your carb and fat intake, getting plenty of sleep, and keeping to your treatment plan.

The article explains why morning blood sugar levels may be high and natural ways to lower them if you have diabetes.

Why Blood Sugar Is High in the Morning

Ideally, when testing your blood glucose (sugar) in the morning, it should be between 70 and 99 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL) if your diabetes is well-controlled.

But oftentimes, a person will test themselves and find that their blood sugar is high despite doing everything their healthcare provider told them to do. This may be due to a relatively common event called the dawn phenomenon that affects roughly 50% people of living with type 1 or type 2 diabetes.

The dawn phenomenon is caused by a chain of events that occurs while you are sleeping:

• In people with diabetes, the body will often produce less insulin at night. Insulin is the hormone that tells the liver when to stop producing glucose.
• As the morning nears, hormones like cortisol and glucagon are released as part of the body's sleep-wake cycle to "fuel" cells with glucose in preparation for the day ahead.
• The combination of low insulin and high hormones contributes to a spike in blood sugar (known as hyperglycemia) first thing in the morning.

As common as the dawn phenomenon is, there are seven things you can do to better avoid these early-morning blood sugar spikes.

Change Your Exercise Routine

Exercise lowers blood sugar by increasing insulin sensitivity. This means that your body uses insulin and glucose more effectively.

Studies have shown that exercising in the afternoon or just after dinner helps stabilize insulin levels at night. By keeping your insulin levels at a steadier state, the body can counter the natural surge in glucose in the morning.

You don't need a hardcore workout to achieve this. Instead, aim for low-intensity exercises like:

• Walking
• Cycling
• Swimming
• Yoga
  

If morning levels are still high, doing moderate-intensity exercise before breakfast can help bring down your blood sugar levels fast while improving glucose control throughout the day.

Take Apple Cider Vinegar

Some alternative practitioners endorse the use of apple cider vinegar to counter the effects of morning blood sugar spikes. Apple cider vinegar does not "treat" diabetes but may provide short-term blood sugar control.

According to a study published in the Journal of Evidence-Based Integrative Medicine, taking 2 tablespoons (1,400 milligrams) of apple cider vinegar can significantly lower fasting blood sugar levels 30 minutes after consumption. After 60 minutes, no benefit is seen.

Side effects include stomach upset and sore throat. Over time, the risks may outweigh the benefits as the long-term use of apple cider vinegar can lead to tooth enamel loss, throat burns, and bone mineral loss. Drug interactions are also common.

Limit Evening Carbs

Diet plays a major role in managing diabetes and maintaining healthy blood sugar levels. This is particularly true when it comes to eating carbohydrates.

While carbs are a critical part of any diet, they need to be consumed in moderation if you have diabetes. This is because the body converts 100% of carbs into glucose. So, if you eat carbs late at night, the level of glucose in your blood will rise as insulin levels start to decrease.

If you are hungry before bedtime, opt for a high-fiber or high-protein, low-fat snack that can satisfy your hunger without significantly affecting your blood sugar.

Examples include:

• Fresh fruit and vegetables
• Fat-free or low-fat yogurt
• Fat-free popcorn
• Low-fat granola
• Hard-boiled egg
• Small apple and reduced-fat cheese

Limiting your evening carb intake is one way to avoid morning spikes. But you also need to be mindful of how many carbs you eat at dinner, counting carbs so that you don't exceed the recommended per-meal intake.

Watch Dinnertime Fat

Healthy fats are an essential part of a balanced diet. However, fat slows down digestion. By doing so, high-fat dinners can delay the normal post-meal rise in glucose until the following morning.

Fatty foods also contribute to obesity, a leading risk factor for diabetes as well as a leading risk factor for poor blood sugar control.

Rather than eating "bad" saturated fats derived from animals that are hard to digest, opt for "good" monosaturated and polyunsaturated fats that are derived from plants and are easier to digest. This is one measure that can help naturally lower blood sugar in people with diabetes.

Prevent Nighttime Hypoglycemia

Nighttime low blood sugar (hypoglycemia) can cause a rebound in blood sugar levels in the morning. This is referred to as the Somogyi effect.

In people without diabetes, glucose and insulin levels tend to stay flat and constant throughout the night, with a slight increase in insulin just before dawn. In people with diabetes, insulin levels typically decrease at night.

So, if blood sugar levels are low, the body will sense this and release excess cortisone and glucagon in the early morning hours to compensate. Without enough insulin to "put the brakes" on glucose production, hyperglycemia will occur.

Unlike the dawn phenomenon that can affect people with otherwise well-controlled diabetes, the Somogyi effect often occurs in people whose diabetes is poorly controlled.

To avoid nighttime hypoglycemia:

• Never skip dinners.
• Recognize the early signs of hypoglycemia so that you can act accordingly.
• Check your blood sugar before bedtime, adjusting your medications as needed.
  
• Avoid heavy exercise before bedtime which can contribute to hypoglycemia.
• Limit alcohol which is a leading risk factor for hypoglycemia.

Get Quality Sleep

If you have diabetes, getting too little sleep can reduce your ability to control your blood sugar by disrupting your normal sleep-wake cycle.

When you are sleep-deprived, hormones aren't released during the early morning hours as they should and blood sugar levels tend to rise precipitously. At the same time, for reasons that are not entirely understood, cells don't respond as well to insulin as well as they are meant to (a condition known as insulin resistance). This almost invariably leads to high blood sugar.

Studies have shown that poor sleepers with diabetes have 23% higher glucose levels in the morning and 48% higher insulin levels than good sleepers with diabetes. High blood sugar and high insulin are characteristic of insulin resistance.

By contrast, getting a solid seven hours of sleep per night is associated with a decrease in insulin resistance.

There are several key ways to improve your sleep:

• Keep your bedroom dark, quiet, and relaxing.
• Keep the bedroom temperature cool, ideally around 65 degrees.
• Remove electronic devices from the bedroom.
• Take time to mentally unwind and relax before bedtime.
  
• Have a nightly bedtime routine, like taking a shower or reading.
• Get into bed only when you are tired.

Follow Your Diabetes Plan

The best way to control your diabetes at nighttime or daytime is to work with your healthcare provider and follow the prescribed treatment plan.

This includes:

• Taking your medication every day as prescribed
• Monitoring your blood sugar as directed
• Eating regularly and with the correct balance of carbs, proteins, and healthy fat
• Exercising routinely, combining resistance training to build lean muscle with aerobics to improve cardiovascular health
• Achieving and maintaining your ideal weight
• Keeping your regular healthcare appointments
• Refilling your drugs on time so you don't miss a dose
• Advising your healthcare provider about any problems you may be experiencing, including high blood sugar in the morning

Summary

High fasting blood sugar in the morning is not uncommon, even among people with well-controlled diabetes. You can better avoid this by making some healthy lifestyle changes, like exercising routinely, limiting your nighttime carbs, avoiding saturated fats, getting plenty of sleep, and keeping to your treatment plan.

Apple cider vinegar has also been proposed as a complementary way to control blood sugar.