Mental Health and Diabetes: Moods, Mindsets, and Self-Care

Mental health can impact your diabetes.

Stress can make your blood glucose harder to control, and depression can make it harder to keep up with your management. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to keep your blood glucose under control as it reduces your risk of complications if you do contract it.

The British “keep calm and carry on” mantra really applies to situations like these. Here are some ways to keep calm and stay happy to reduce the impact on your mind and body.

Keep your cool

Routine

For starters—routine! Keeping a solid routine both in times of stress and times of calm can bring a sense of wellbeing and consistency to your life.

While many people’s daily routines have changed during the COVID-19 crisis, keeping a feeling of “normal” is important. Just getting up and changing your clothes is a small but important piece of routine in our daily lives. If you’re looking to have a little more fun, make good habits a game with Habitica, which allows you to earn achievements and resources completing tasks to level up your character. Not into games? Want something more simple? Here’s a list Lifehack.org’s 24 Best Habit Tracking Apps.

If you live in a house with roommates or children, having a written common routine on a whiteboard can help. Luckily, there are lots of great examples for parents now semi-homeschooling their kids. Scheduling things like together and alone time might seem silly, but keeping everyone in the house happy is important right now.

Relax

Destressing is important in a stressful time. If you’ve never tried meditation, it’s the perfect time to now! Apps like Calm, Headspace, and Ten Percent can walk you through meditations to help you stay calm and unwind after a long day.

Having trouble sleeping? Relax Melodies has meditations, soothing music and noise to help you relax into sleep mode. Get Sleepy or other sleep-geared podcasts are also a great way to slip into sleep.

Stay Mentally Healthy

Therapy

There is still a stigma around therapy and counseling, but it’s an important tool for getting through hard times, recovering from hard times, and working on self-improvement. If you’ve never tried it before, right now is the perfect time. With the expansion of teletherapy many clinics are still in full swing with availability. You can reach out to your local clinic system about their options or utilize services like Talkspace.

If you want to take a more self-help approach here are 25 apps that help you walk through anxiety management, cognitive behavioral therapy exercises, and more.

Support

Community and individualized support are more important for coping now than ever. With so many people cut off from their normal support systems, there are still many places to utilize support groups online.

Mental Health America has an expansive list of resources for different kinds of mental health, substance abuse, and financial support. They even have specific resources for veterans, parents, caregivers, LGBTQ+ folks, and more.

Keep moving

Exercise

Physical activity is a huge destresser. While depression and anxiety can make it hard to get up and go, doing simple things like taking a walk around the block or getting some yard work done are great ways to get your body moving without the mental hurdle of something like jogging.
With different states, cities, and counties issuing Shelter in Place or Stay at Home orders, check what’s allowed in your region—Pops’ home state of Minnesota still allows outdoor recreational activity while social distancing during its Stay at Home order.

If you like the traditional ways of working out, there are plenty of at-home options to recreate your gym days in your own home.

Keep calm and wash your hands!

We are all in this together.

Your friend,

Mina