How Is My Diabetes Related To My Mood?
People who use insulin or have hypoglycemia are susceptible to temporary changes in their mood. These could include fatigue, tiredness, frustration, or impatience. The impact of this sugar drop varies according to what we are doing at the time. We will not face a stressful situation in the same way if we are in charge of a child, or two teenagers, full of work or at home relaxed at that moment.
Even though it's evident that low blood sugar significantly affects our mood, facing a diabetes diagnosis will have a profound emotional impact. First and foremost, because of how we manage the physical consequences of the disease, but also because we now know that we are patients with a chronic disease that will make us completely rethink our daily lives.
In this sense, how we respond to the diagnosis and how well we follow treatment instructions are the most typical emotional consequences of having diabetes. This will be a difficult journey, and there may be moments when we feel helpless or annoyed and believe that the illness, not us, is in charge of our lives.
Diabetes-related stress and depression
Why are we experiencing this? To everyday problems and worldly concerns, new dilemmas that we must face are added overnight. From societal stigma or discrimination, the cost of prescription drugs, or ongoing medical observation.
These important worries come on top of the new routines we have to adopt, such as meal planning or blood sugar monitoring, which might cause stress. Like a vicious cycle, high levels of stress can lead to the patient forming harmful patterns in addition to releasing additional glucose into the blood. For instance, drug use, poor eating habits, and a sedentary lifestyle are risk factors for diabetes patients.
Furthermore, it would be impossible to discuss diabetes and mood states without bringing up depression, which is far more common in these patients than in the general population. While research on the connection between the two conditions is ongoing, we know that controlling diabetes is a stressful process that can cause symptoms of depression. In turn, the health complications caused by diabetes can worsen the mood symptoms of depression.
Focus On Mental Health
For this reason, there is an increasing awareness of the connection between illnesses like diabetes and depression, even though health experts are still debating whether to use preventative measures or a multidisciplinary approach to diabetes.
Because of this, we also need to pay attention to the psychological effects and emotional expression that come with having a chronic illness, as these topics are still taboo in our culture, particularly when it comes to the elderly. As we've already discussed, treating diabetes with a multidisciplinary approach can not only enhance patients' quality of life but also avert potential symptom exacerbation.