Thus, a slightly more reliable way of measuring insulin is C-peptide. It is a kind of peptide that is released along with insulin by beta-cells in the pancreas. It has a half-life of more than 30 minutes and is less prone to fluctuations. Thus, measuring it helps detects health issues like type 1 diabetes (Venugopal et al., 2023).

The third way of measuring insulin is an indirect way. Which essentially means measuring glucose levels in the blood. There are many tests, like fasting blood glucose, oral glucose tolerance tests, and more. They not only help diagnose conditions like diabetes but also help identify insulin resistance or mild insulin deficiency (B. Singh & Saxena, 2010).

What test to use and when is best decided by health experts or doctors.

Visible signs and symptoms of insulin changes

Identifying subtle changes in insulin levels based on signs and symptoms is challenging. Nevertheless, it is worth understanding that many issues like type 2 diabetes and PCOS (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome; women’s common hormone dysfunction) occur due to insulin resistance. Moreover, a person has high insulin early in these issues. Thus, high insulin may cause obesity, metabolic disorders, and changes in hormone health (PCOS and Diabetes, 2020; Wondmkun, 2020).

However, changes in insulin levels, insulin spikes, and developing insulin resistance provide some early signs like darkened skin in the armpit or sides of the neck (acanthosis nigricans) (Insulin Resistance & Prediabetes – NIDDK, 2018).

However, as insulin resistance increases and insulin levels decline significantly, one starts developing signs of diabetes like fatigue, thirst, increased urge to pee, excessive sweating, poorly healing wounds, and more.

How to balance your insulin hormone levels?

There are many ways of normalizing insulin levels. According to several studies, it is now evident that insulin levels are better corrected through lifestyle interventions. Moreover, such methods are safe and sustainable. Here we present a three-dimensional approach to balance your insulin levels.

Lose body weight: 

• Amazingly, one does not need to reduce body weight significantly to experience its health benefits. Studies show that merely 5% weight loss can dramatically improve insulin levels (Ryan & Yockey, 2017). There are many ways of weight loss, like exercise, dietary measures (permanent nutritional changes – no quick diets!), and altering practical eating habits and thinking patterns (e.g. self-leadership to avoid emotional eating etc.). Thus, interventions like hypnotherapy (=relaxing hypnosis + therapeutic mindshifting methods) can help significantly and bring you long-term benefits for both your body and mind (=they are not separate, remember?).

Dietary measures: 

• Book a meeting with your personal nutrition coach with mindshifting methods! First of all: don’t fall into the vicious cycle of practicing some restrictive diets again and again. Honestly, they can do you more harm than good in the long run. Good dietary measures for balancing your insulin hormone levels means making healthy dietary choices, a good lifestyle that lasts. It also means giving up binge eating or emotional eating where hypnotherapy, personal coaching and NLP “tricks” help you a lot. Remember that reprogramming the brain through behavioral therapy , NLP training or hypnosis may help alter eating habits. This can also help prevent hunger pangs.

Stress management: 

• Many insulin correction programs fail because people fail to realize the value of stress management. Their life is so busy that it’s understandable that they want to find the “quick fix” and they get frustrated when the results don’t come quickly or if after a quick-and-dirty restrictive diet their weight increases again “surprisingly”. Hopefully after reading this scientific article, you now understand why long-term fixes are the only ones that last, and that requires good stress management skills i.e. mindshifting methods.

Getting good results requires prolonged effort

Though one may experience some benefits already from day one – luckily! Many ways to reduce stress include adequate and quality sleep, meditation, practicing mindfulness, and learning other beneficial mindshifting methods you can utilize in many areas of life. 

Hypnotic therapy (clinical hypnotherapy) can help you change your thinking patterns and eliminate constant worries. You will notice the benefits once you start learning the various mindshifting skills suited to your personal background, situation and goals.