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Kos Diabetes Group: Diabetes and Mental Health [1]

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Date: 2022-10-28

Thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and attitudes can affect how healthy your body is. Untreated mental health issues can make diabetes worse, and problems with diabetes can make mental health issues worse. But fortunately, if one gets better, the other tends to get better, too. It is estimated that only around 1/3 of people with diabetes and mental health conditions receive a diagnosis and proper treatment. People with diabetes also may face stigma when talking about their feelings of depression and so tend not to talk about them with their healthcare providers.

The most common mental health problems for diabetics are depression, stress, anxiety and diabetes distress.

Everyone gets sad now and then, but depression is much more than feeling blue. It saps your energy and makes you feel hopeless. People with diabetes are 2 to 3 times more likely to have depression than people without diabetes. Less than half of people with diabetes who have depression get diagnosed and treated. But treatment—therapy, medicine, or both—is usually very effective. And without treatment, depression often gets worse, not better.

Get help if you feel depressed

Symptoms of depression can be mild to severe, and include:

Feeling sad or empty

Losing interest in favorite activities

Overeating or not wanting to eat at all

Not being able to sleep or sleeping too much

Having trouble concentrating or making decisions

Feeling very tired

Feeling hopeless, irritable, anxious, or guilty

Having aches or pains, headaches, cramps, or digestive problems

Having thoughts of suicide or death

If you think you might have depression, get in touch with your doctor right away for help getting treatment. The earlier depression is treated, the better for you, your quality of life, and your diabetes.

Stress is part of life, from traffic jams to family demands to everyday diabetes care. You can feel stress as an emotion, such as fear or anger, as a physical reaction like sweating or a racing heart, or both. A diabetes diagnosis can cause prolonged stress which may possibly cause a rise in blood sugar. Stress can also make following your diabetes maintenance routine more difficult.

If you’re stressed, you may not take as good care of yourself as usual. Your blood sugar levels can be affected too—stress hormones can make blood sugar rise or fall unpredictably, and stress from being sick or injured can make your blood sugar go up. Being stressed for a long time can lead to other health problems or make them worse. Experts suggest looking for patterns; be aware of your stress level each time you log your blood sugar and see if a pattern emerges. If you notice a pattern, you can learn to spot your stress warning signs and take action to prevent stress and keep your blood sugar in your target range.

Anxiety—feelings of worry, fear, or being on edge—is how your mind and body react to stress. People with diabetes are 20% more likely than those without diabetes to have anxiety at some point in their life. Managing a long-term condition like diabetes is a major source of anxiety for some. Anxiety can feel like low blood sugar and vice versa. It may be hard to recognize which it is and treat it effectively. If you’re feeling anxious, try checking your blood sugar and treat it if it’s low.

You can also help lower your stress and anxiety by:

Being active: even a quick walk can be calming, and the effect can last for hours.

Doing some relaxation exercises, like meditation or yoga.

Calling or texting a friend who understands you (not someone who is causing you stress!).

Grabbing some “you” time. Take a break from whatever you’re doing. Go outside, read something fun—whatever helps you recharge.

Limiting alcohol and caffeine, eating healthy food, and getting enough sleep.

A diabetes diagnosis can feel like not just a threat to health, it can also seem like a threat to a person’s way of life, because managing diabetes means making changes to your day-to-day routine. These changes can be emotionally draining, and you might start to notice that you are feeling a bit off or have very little energy left to carry out important tasks or managing your condition.

You may sometimes feel discouraged, worried, frustrated, or tired of dealing with daily diabetes care, like diabetes is controlling you instead of the other way around. Maybe you’ve been trying hard but not seeing results. Or you’ve developed a health problem related to diabetes despite your best efforts.

Those overwhelming feelings are known as diabetes distress and may cause you to slip into unhealthy habits, stop checking your blood sugar, even skip doctor’s appointments. It happens to many—if not most—people with diabetes, often after years of good management. In any 18-month period, 33% to 50% of people with diabetes have diabetes distress.

Diabetes distress can look like depression or anxiety, but it can’t be treated effectively with medicine. Instead, try these steps:

Make sure you’re seeing an endocrinologist for your diabetes care. An endocrinologist is likely to have a deeper understanding of diabetes challenges than your regular doctor.

Ask your doctor to refer you to a mental health counselor who specializes in chronic health conditions.

Get some one-on-one time with a diabetes educator so you can problem-solve together.

Focus on one or two small diabetes management goals instead of thinking you have to work on everything all at once.

Join a diabetes support group so you can share your thoughts and feelings with people who have the same concerns (and learn from them too).

Learning that you have diabetes may leave you upset, confused, or sad. These feelings are understandable and typically, ease up with time. But sometimes, they linger too long, and you get stuck in a cycle of emotions that makes it harder to manage your condition but you can take some practical steps to improve your well-being.

Learn as much as possible. Information is power. Understanding your condition and how to manage it will let you see solutions where you first saw concern or confusion. Ask questions about anything that you don’t understand.

Make a plan. Set goals for things like healthy eating and exercise. A good plan puts you back in control. Break the work into smaller pieces to make it less overwhelming.

Check your plan. Make sure your plan works for you and not the other way around.

Adjust your goals. If you keep missing your goals, maybe you set the bar too high. Dial it back and find easy wins to build on.

Go small. Big, sweeping changes might feel good to make, but they’re hard to pull off. Go for small changes instead and build good habits.

Write about it. A journal can help organize your thoughts and recognize emotional triggers. For example, you might realize you’re upset over how diabetes changes your social life. Or that telling people about your diabetes makes you sad. Seeing these patterns may help you figure out how to deal with them.

Reach out. Negative emotions get more intense when you feel alone and having a serious condition can make you feel cut off from the world. Seek out family, friends, or a support group, and talk to them honestly about your feelings.

Find a support group. Check in online or in person with others who have diabetes to share stories and get tips.

Talk to a therapist. A good therapist gives you an outlet for your emotions. You can also learn new skills for handling the challenges of diabetes.

Consider family therapy. Diabetes can place a strain on relationships. In therapy, you learn to work together to manage your condition. You can also sort through your emotions and learn how to express them. Having any chronic condition can increase the need for emotional support and the potential for frustration and tension, which can lead to conflict. Understanding diabetes’ range of potential effects can help loved ones provide support and help strengthen the relationship.

Be good to yourself. It’s easy to think you don’t do enough or to feel worn down from everything. To balance that, you might:

Exercise often. It lowers depression, anxiety, and stress. Yoga, the gym, or a simple walk in nature can all help.

Get enough sleep. Everything’s harder when you’re tired. Create a nightly routine and get to bed at a good time.

Nix the blame game. No one’s perfect. If you mess up, go easy on yourself.

Reward yourself. Find healthy ways to treat yourself so it doesn’t feel like work all the time. Reward yourself when you meet goals.

Learn relaxation techniques. From deep breathing to meditation, try new ways to keep calm.

Practice gratitude. It may sound corny to some, but it works. Think about what you’re thankful for, and your mood can shift.

Let it be. When you fight your feelings, you only feed the beast. Remember that your moods will pass.

Because one of the biggest challenges to treatment of mental health conditions for people with diabetes is low rates of detection, if you feel you may be suffering from depression, stress, or anxiety reach out to your physician so he or she can help you find appropriate assistance.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/10/28/2131822/-Kos-Diabetes-Group-Diabetes-and-Mental-Health

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