Reducing Stress and Its Influence on Your Diabetes

Not only is stress a frustrating part of life, it also has negative effects on your health. Take these steps to combat stress and limit its impact on your diabetes.

By Janice Baker, MBA, RD, CDE, CNSC, BC-ADM

Stress is a natural part of being human. Some days you may feel great, while others you may feel tired, sad, and upset. Stress can come from all sorts of sources in our everyday lives. There are physical stressors that influence our bodies, and there are mental stressors like our jobs, school, and problems with family and friends.

Having diabetes can be really stressful and can make life all the more difficult. You’ve probably heard about the fight or flight response; stress is what triggers this response in our bodies and minds and causes us to react the way we do in difficult situations or at times when we feel under attack.

When this happens, our bodies release hormones and chemicals into the body to make more resources available to our cells to escape the perceived danger. One of the compounds that floods your body during stressful times is glucose, causing spikes in blood glucose levels.

Changes like this in your blood sugar can make it harder to control your diabetes. Even worse, low blood sugar can make you feel nervous or upset and often very frightened. On the other hand, high blood sugar can make you feel tired or down, especially when you’re dealing with symptoms like excess thirst, frequent urination, and vision changes.

Some common stressors that may exacerbate your diabetes include:

• Sleep – not enough or poor quality sleep (snoring, anxiety, wakefulness)
• Infection- such as a cold, flu, gum disease, surgery, chronic pain, injury
• Diabetes medications that are not taken, have unwanted side effects or interfere with blood sugar control
• Food rules, fear of eating, nutrition misinformation, conflicting diet restrictions, lack of time or resources to shop, preparing proper meals and snacks
• Fear of needles or blood sugar testing
• Eating disorders and disordered eating (these can be magnified by stress and medication issues)
• Physical stressors such as injury or illness
• Psychological stressors such as problems in marriage, family, job, health, or finances

So you may be asking yourself: what can I do to keep my stress under control?

We recommend you take some time for yourself every day to help you wind down. This is difficult given our fast-paced lives, but if you can find some time every day to find some peace and quiet, you will see an immediate benefit. There are a number of things you can do to limit the stress in your life and its effect on your diabetes:

• Be physically active at least 30 minutes a day and break up long periods of sitting. Long periods of sitting are stressful on the body and increase the risk of other medical stressors such as blood clots and muscle loss. Consider standing up and walking around for 3 minutes for every 30 minutes of sitting. Even better yet, go outside for fresh air and a break in your environment.
• Get a hobby, join a club or try a new sport. Even some simple hobbies like needlepoint, knitting, painting, and coloring books are very helpful in lowering stress levels which may help with lowering blood sugar levels.
• Listen to music, or play a musical instrument if you can. Harmonicas are small, easy and fun to play!
• Open up. Share your feelings with family and friends who are supportive. Let them know what part of your diabetes routine is most difficult.

You may find that implementing these tips may not only help improve your feelings of stress, but they may improve your blood sugar control.  Your Dario meter will help you reflect on your choices and implement behavior changes that can optimize blood sugar management.

Always remember, your healthcare team is by your side to help you through any and every problem you may face. Call your doctor or diabetes educator if you have too much stress in your life. They are there to help and make diabetes management as simple and realistic for you as possible. 

Lastly, there is no one perfect way to manage diabetes. Everyone with diabetes is a unique individual with different goals. We are here by your side to help you do your best and encourage you throughout your journey as you learn to thrive with diabetes!