Living with diabetes can be challenging and can impact on all aspects
of your life. For some people the diagnosis of and the day-to-day
living with diabetes may prove stressful.
There are many strategies for coping with stress:
Talk to somebody
Practice relaxation exercises
Eat healthily
Try to get a little more exercise
Set small achievable goals and reward yourself when you achieve
them
You may also consider:
Joining Diabetes Ireland – they have many support
groups and will help you meet people in a similar situation to
yourself
Talking to a counsellor or trained therapist
Here are 5 tips to take you safely through life’s stressful and
anxious moments – and to help you feel more peaceful, confident and
happy as you live your life with diabetes.
Beware of the words must and should
If you are newly diagnosed, it is perfectly normal to feel stressed
by new challenges. You may be nervous about what diabetes will mean
for your quality of life, your safety, your dreams, commitments and
people around you.
In an effort to guide and support you, lots of people – including
healthcare professionals, friends and family members – may offer tips
about diet, lifestyle, exercise and more. Advice can be helpful, but
it can also have the unintended effect of creating stress.
Your best defense against this kind of stress is to understand what
is going on. If you have ever tried to give advice to someone, you
know that it can be very hard to not use words like “should”, “don’t”
and “must”. As a person with diabetes, you have probably heard some of these:
• You should exercise regularly.
• Don’t have more than one piece of cake.
• People with diabetes must say goodbye to sugar.
If taken the wrong way, these words can wear you down rather than
build you up. It would be good to learn how to filter what is useful
from what feels pushy and mainly feeds your stress.
Share
“Saying the words should and must – even internally –
will help to create that stress. When you are calm and relaxed, you
are in control of your own body.”
As you get better at learning from advice, you will also be easier on
yourself when – occasionally and with good judgement – you choose to
disregard it.
Advice is intended to guide and support you, not punish you. Receive
it as a tool, not a weapon. Go easy on yourself when diabetes
challenges you in ways you aren’t prepared for.
Take a breath
A medical condition can be overwhelming until you find the right
coping mechanisms. Doubts and questions may fill your head. “What’s
going on?” “What is my body doing?” “How will I feel if I eat this?”
Such questions can create the experience of stress, which may manifest
in a number of symptoms:
• Headaches
• Disrupted sleep – or too much sleep
• Tense and painful muscles
• Exhaustion
• Feeling ill or feeble
If you have one or some of these symptoms, you are likely to also
feel irritable, unmotivated, depressed or nervous.
Share
“When you are calm and relaxed, you are in control of your own body.”
A great way to neutralise what may feel like a downward spiral is
through mindfulness or breathing exercises (or both!). Many studies
show that by breathing properly, you can reduce stress, prevent
insomnia, control emotions and help improve attention. Yoga,
meditation or exercise may have similar effects.
Breathing can be used to regulate emotions and enhance well-being in
a number of ways. Some techniques emphasise mindful perspectives on
experience, while others consider the physical side.
How do you pick a system? Remember that no two people are the same,
and no two conditions are the same. This means you will have to do
some browsing and try out different breathing or meditation techniques
in order to find the one you prefer.
And as with everything, practice is the key. So stick with what
works, and you are likely to feel increasingly more relaxed and in
charge of your body and your mind.
There is another important reason why stress management benefits
people living with diabetes, and it has to do with the glucose levels
in your blood. When the body experiences stress, it is preparing to
manifest a dramatic response to the environment – commonly known as
the fight-or-flight response.
When the fight-or-flight response is activated, a number of
reactions happen in the body:
• Respiration rates are increased.
• Blood is directed to the muscles and limbs.
• Hormone levels are elevated.
As a result of acute stress, adrenaline, cortisol and glucose are
released into your bloodstream. If you are living with diabetes, your
body may not be able to turn the released glucose into the energy your
fight-or-flight state is calling for. This will cause it to build up
in the bloodstream – as you will see for yourself if you check your
glucose level with a blood glucose meter.
In stressful situations, practice breathing through it. Controlling
your reaction to stress can help you manage your blood glucose levels,
which is a great skill to have in the long run.
Share
“Snacks are things you don’t really need but feel you need.”
Food stimulates us and generally makes us feel good. That is why food
is used for more than merely satisfying hunger. Many people are
familiar with using food as a means of achieving comfort or dealing
with difficult emotions.
For those living with diabetes, uncertainty about diet can cause
anxiety and stress. Ironically, food can offer temporary relief from
dietary stress. But the key word here is “temporary”.
Many people can relate to the pleasure of chocolate, and with good
reason. Studies have shown that some types of chocolate may lower
levels of stress hormone cortisol and decrease symptoms of anxiety.
But when you engage in stress eating, you are trading long-term
metabolic balance and control for short-term temporary relief. Stress
eating is understandable, of course, but keep an eye on your tendency
to alleviate stress through eating. Don’t add an addictive
relationship to food to the challenges of living with diabetes.
Share
“Things like chocolate make you feel good – for about a nano second.
And then we eat more. And then we eat more. And then we eat more.”
If you do “slip” and find yourself enjoying food that is NOT part of
your meal plan, then ask yourself if you are able to stop before you
get to the bottom of the bag or bowl. Learn to stop by your own
choice, because NOT stopping amounts to a loss of control, which will
compromise your health and increase the risk of hyperglycaemia.
Relax your body for easier injections
When it comes to injecting medicine into your body, your natural
response may be nausea or fear (of pain or injury). But your fear of
pain is often much greater than the actual pain associated with
injections. Your mind is playing a trick on you.
Because we are talking about a mental challenge again – that is, a
matter depending on perspective and mindset – the best way to overcome
the challenge is psychological.
When you are mentally stabilised, empowered and calm, you will feel
much better equipped for the challenge of introducing medicine into
your body through a pen or needle.
Share
“We need to change the belief that it is going to hurt. So relax the
muscles. It’s as simple as that.”
People living with diabetes are on their own with their condition the
vast majority of the time. Access to the support and counsel of
healthcare professionals can be quite limited, which may create
feelings of frustration or helplessness. A life-changing condition
like type 2 diabetes is too much to bear on your own and without
guidance, not least because it can put an additional damper on your
social life until you find the strategies that work for you.
Consider joining a support group close to where you live. Get active
and reach out to your community. Between 1980 and 2016, the global
prevalence of diabetes increased nearly 100%. In other words, you are
increasingly likely to find others living with diabetes near you. And
creating bonds and friendships with them has the added bonus of
alleviating stress, anxiety, depression and loneliness.
Share
“I needed that support. And I’m sure that other people did too.”
If you are newly diagnosed, there may be a temptation to focus on all
that diabetes puts in your way or takes away from you. It is natural
to conclude that something terrible and unfair has happened and that
you are a victim of circumstance. But what if you tried to consider
the things that diabetes makes possible?
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“It gives me such a warm feeling within myself to know that I helped
somebody so that they are living their life instead of their life
living them.”
Diabetes is your body trying to tell you to care for it in a new way
– which YOU ABSOLUTELY CAN DO, especially after learning a few tips
and tricks about food and exercise. These lessons can help you
experience a newfound respect for yourself.
You may even become someone other people with diabetes can turn to
for guidance and support, companionship and friendship. When that
happens, it’s easy to see that an unwelcome diagnosis can become a
source of purpose, an invitation to meaning and an opportunity to be awesome.
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