Sugar Withdrawal Symptoms: Side Effects of Cutting Down Sugar in Diet

Here are a few side effects that you may experience in the initial days of giving up sugar.

There's no doubt that sugar intake is harmful to health and we can take few steps to reduce our sugar intake in day to day life for better quality of life, physical, and mental health. But getting rid of the habit to eat those sweet chocolates and drink sugar loaded tea and coffee isn't that easy as it sounds. But we need the mental will to do it and the benefits may encourage us to do so.

Research has proved that a high added sugar intake is linked with the risk of various health conditions like obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, poor dental health taken as an obvious drawback.

Sugar reduces our energy levels, causing fatigue, low alertness levels, and depression in some cases. But if we encourage ourselves to cut down the sugar intake, we can protect against chronic disease development and boost our overall health.

In this article, let's discuss the other side effects or say the other effects on our body, both physically and mentally.

• Changes in Mood: Few people may feel low or down or even depressed when they suddenly stop eating sugar. This is likely because a lack of sugar that causes a reduction in the dopamine release, a neurotransmitter that plays a key role in the brain's reward system.

• Lack of concentration: After going off sugar, few people may experience trouble focusing and paying attention that results in lack of concentration on tasks in school, at work, or even in day to day activities.

• Irritability may be one of the symptoms or side effects of sugar withdrawal that results in low tolerance for people or situations that may be annoying. Few incidents include traffic, someone singing loudly, constant blabbering in the background, loud noise, etc.

• Intense cravings: When you suddenly remove sweet things and sugared coffee or tea from your diet, on seeing carb-rich foods or sweets, you may want to eat them and may experience cravings for these specific foods.

• Feeling anxious: Cutting out sugar suddenly and quickly may lead to restlessness and increased anxiety.

• Nausea: Some people may even experience digestive problems like nausea when they decide to let the additional sugar go out of their diet.

• Headaches: A sudden reduction in sugar intake may result in low blood sugar levels that often causes headaches.

• Changes in your sleep pattern: Some people find it difficult to fall asleep as fast or stay asleep when they give up sugar thus problem in sleeping is one of the symptoms for sugar withdrawal.