What is the Link between Diabetes and Mental health?

The goal of treating diabetes is to eliminate symptoms and to prevent or slow down the development of complications.

Mental health issues can worsen diabetes. Similarly, people living with diabetes can develop mental health issues.

For this reason, mental health must be addressed in management of diabetes.

It is difficult to stick to a diabetes care plan when dealing with mental healthissues such as depression.

Depression affects an individual’s performance in all areas of life. Depression can also arise from worry and fear of developing complications from diabetes.

Stress and anxiety impacts an individual’s ability to take care of themselves. Chronic stress (stress that persists for a long time) can lead to serious health conditions.

Stress also affects the level of blood sugar. Stress hormones may lead to an unpredictable rise or a fall in blood sugar levels.

Furthermore, managing diabetes can be stressful and may lead to distress commonly known as Diabetes distress. Diabetes can cause lifestyle changes that one may not be ready for such as assuming added responsibilities including constant blood sugar monitoring and diet changes.

Diabetes management programs should therefore focus on behavior modification to help improve a person's well-being.

Individuals who succumb to mental health issues should be taken through psychotherapy and other forms of therapy.

Collaborative care can be adopted whereby a team of care providers which includes a mental health specialist is involved in management.

It is important to recognize early symptoms of stress and depression i.e. feeling less interested in activities that were previously enjoyable, fatigue, body aches, sleep problems, sad feeling, becoming easily irritable.

You can use the following approaches to help reduce stress and avoid its impact on your diabetes management plan:

  • Use relaxation: practice deep breathing, meditation, yoga and mindfulness to help your body and mind be calm.
  • Exercise helps reduce stress and anxiety.
  • You can also share what you are going through with friends and family.
  • You may also join a support group of people with diabetes which will help you get to talk about the issues.
  • You can also seek professional help when your mental health issues persist. Your health care provider can help you to work out a plan to manage both your diabetes and your stress, anxiety and depression.