How Gratitude Balances Your Body and Blood Sugar
How Gratitude Balances Your Body and Blood Sugar
If you’re living with chronic conditions like type 2 diabetes, or you’re aiming to improve your health after 40, you know how important diet, movement, and sleep are. What many people don’t realize is how deeply our mindset—especially gratitude—affects our body, our stress hormones, and yes, our blood sugar. Let’s explore how practicing gratitude every day helps you lower stress, balance your hormone cortisol, and support healthier blood sugars.
What is gratitude—and why it matters
Gratitude is simply noticing and appreciating the things in your life that bring you joy, comfort, support or meaning. It doesn’t have to be big. It could be the morning light, a kind word from a friend, or a moment of quiet.
Research shows that gratitude isn’t just a “nice to have” but a healthful habit. For example, a review from UCLA Health found that gratitude helps relieve stress, improve sleep, and support heart health. (UCLA Health) A systematic review of 64 clinical trials found that people who practiced gratitude had better mental-health scores, less anxiety and depression. (PMC)
When you take time each day to focus on what you’re thankful for, you’re actually changing your brain wiring, lowering stress, helping your nervous system settle — and this sets the stage for your body (and your blood sugar) to behave better.
Stress, cortisol and blood sugar: how they connect
To understand how gratitude connects to blood sugar, we need to talk about the stress hormone called Cortisol.
Cortisol is released when your body senses stress—whether emotional (worrying, fear) or physical (illness, pain, lack of sleep). It has important jobs: wake you up, give you energy when you need it, help respond to threats. But when it stays high — day after day — it causes problems.
One of the key issues: cortisol raises blood sugar. According to an article on Healthline, cortisol triggers your liver to release more glucose and also makes your body less sensitive to insulin (the hormone that takes sugar out of the blood). (Healthline) A study in a diabetes‐specialist journal found that people with type 2 diabetes had higher blood sugars when cortisol levels were elevated. (AJMC)
Another study found that people with a “flatter” cortisol pattern (instead of normal rises and falls) had worse glucose metabolism over time. (PMC)
In short: Stress → higher cortisol → more glucose in the blood + less insulin effect → harder to control your blood sugar.
How gratitude lowers cortisol — and so helps blood sugar
Here’s where it all comes together. When you practice gratitude regularly, you lower stress. When stress goes down, cortisol tends to go down or normalize. And when cortisol is lower, your blood sugar has a better chance of staying in range.
Some research:
A study found that writing about gratitude reduced cortisol reactivity (the spike in cortisol when you’re stressed). (ScholarSpace)
Gratitude was linked with about 23% lower levels of stress hormones in some samples. (UC Davis Health)
Another article noted that gratitude helps the “rest and digest” (parasympathetic) nervous system turn on, which opposes the “fight or flight” stress system. (UCLA Health)
So the chain of impact is: gratitude practice → stress reduction → more balanced cortisol → better glucose metabolism → more stable blood sugar. That’s the big idea.
What this means for you as a woman over 40
As we get older, our metabolism changes. We may face menopause, hormonal shifts, slower muscle mass, more insulin resistance. For women managing chronic illness (like diabetes, obesity, or metabolic syndrome), adding tools like mindset practices makes a difference.
Here’s why gratitude is especially helpful foryou:
You might face daily stressors: health worries, caregiving, work, life transitions. Those keep cortisol higher.
Higher cortisol makes it harder to lose fat, harder to reverse insulin resistance, and harder to get blood sugar in control.
Gratitude is simple, cost-free, and you can build it into your day easily.
When you pair gratitude with your functional-medicine work (diet, movement, sleep, maybe coaching), it becomes part of a full system.
How to build a daily gratitude practice (for blood sugar support)
Here are practical steps you can take. Try one or all. The goal is consistency—not perfection.
Start a gratitude journal
Each evening, write down 3 things you are grateful for. They can be small (a warm cup of tea) or big (a friend’s support).
Keep it simple—just 1–2 sentences each.
After a few weeks you’ll start noticing more things you can add.
Thank-you note or voice message
Once per week, send a note or voice message to someone: “I’m grateful for you because…”
Expressing gratitude for others boosts your own mood and helps the nervous system relax.
Gratitude pause
During your day, take 30 seconds to pause, breathe deeply, and think: “What’s one thing I’m thankful for right now?”
Use the breath: inhale for 4, hold 2, exhale for 6. Repeat 2–3 times.
This trains your body to shift from stress to calm.
Link it to your health goal
When you eat well, move your body, or rest well, pause and say, “I’m grateful my body can…”
This builds a positive connection between your healthy habits and how you feel.
A mini-“what if” for you
What if you kept a gratitude journal every night for 30 days—could that shift how you feel when you wake up?
What if that shift meant fewer cortisol spikes, fewer high numbers on your glucose meter, or less fatigue?
What if this simple habit became the glue that sticks your diet, movement and mindset together?
Try it. Track your mood, stress, and blood sugar patterns. Partnering your gratitude work with your core functional medicine approach (e.g., low-glycemic diet, movement, sleep hygiene) gives you more “levers” to pull.
Things to keep in mind
Gratitude is not a substitute for medical treatment, medication, diet or exercise. It’s a supportive tool.
Because the research on gratitude and cortisol is still emerging, individual results vary.
It’s okay if some days you don’t feel like being grateful—this is about building a muscle, not adding more pressure.
If you’re going through a very difficult time (grief, illness, trauma) consider adding a therapist or counselor, and treat gratitude gently, not as another “should”.
Bottom line
Your mindset matters. When you regularly practice gratitude, you help your body shift out of “stress mode”. Less stress means better cortisol regulation. Better cortisol regulation means your body can handle glucose more effectively and your insulin works better. If you’re working to get healthier, reverse disease, or move toward remission of type 2 diabetes, gratitude is a hidden powerhouse habit.
So tonight, grab your journal (or phone note). Write 3 things you’re grateful for. Breathe. Give your body a calm moment. Your blood sugar—and your broader health journey—will thank you.
Quick Takeaways
Gratitude helps reduce stress and lower cortisol.
High cortisol makes blood sugar harder to control.
A daily gratitude habit supports better glucose metabolism.
Keep it simple, regular, and paired with your lifestyle plan.
This habit is especially meaningful for women over 40 managing chronic conditions.
Thanks for reading, and I hope today you feel grateful for that one thing that made you smile.
– Alexandra, PharmD, CDE
References:
Fekete EM et al. “A Brief Gratitude Writing Intervention Decreased Stress and…” 2022. (PMC)
Leclerc MF. “The Effects of Gratitude on Cortisol Reactivity.” 2017. (ScholarSpace)
Diniz G et al. “The Effects of Gratitude Interventions: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.” 2023. (PMC)
Healthline. “How Does Cortisol Affect Your Blood Sugar Levels?” 2025. (Healthline)
Melillo G. “Stress Hormone Cortisol Associated With Increased Blood Sugar in T2D Population.” 2020. (AJMC)
Hackett RA et al. “Diurnal Cortisol Patterns, Future Diabetes, and Impaired Glucose Metabolism.” 2015. (PMC)
