Healthy Coping

Living health with diabetes means not only taking care of your physical health, but also your emotional health. Managing stress, avoiding burnout, and recognizing depression are important parts of your emotional health.

Stress Management: Managing stress is important because stress can raise your blood glucose. It is important to learn how to identify causes of stress and find ways to manage or eliminate that stress if possible.

Avoiding Burnout: Living with a chronic disease is hard. It can feel like a burden to have to think about your diabetes everyday and that can leave you feeling burned out. Some of the same skills used to manage stress such as physical activity, spiritual practices such as meditation or prayer, engaging in activities you enjoy, and getting support can all help you overcome feeling burned out.

Depression: Every person has days when they feel sad, discouraged or unmotivated in life. But when those feelings last for days and weeks, a person may be having symptoms of depression. Symptoms of depression can include: feelings of hopelessness and helplessness, lack of energy, trouble sleeping or eating, thoughts of suicide or self-harm. Being depressed will affect how motivated you are to care for your diabetes. Depression is a very treatable condition! If you are experiencing any of the symptoms of depression, talk to your doctor right away.

Take a diabetes self management class or join a diabetes support group to learn more about healthy coping!