Stress and diabetes

For human beings to survive well, struggle is inevitable. But, struggle has been always stressful. In earlier times, due to limited competition, small and very supportive communities, simple lifestyles, predefined roles and responsibilities and slow living, struggle was made easy as an individual had lots of opportunities to relax or de-stress. Now with changing times, stress has come up as a worldwide epidemic affecting every individual in their everyday life. If we have to now lead a healthy life we have to find techniques to combat stress in our daily life or we will burnout.

The indicators of stress in an individual can be classified under four categories: physical, mental, emotional and behavioural. Physically stress causes restlessness, pains & aches, uptight, high blood pressure, palpitations, muscle tensions, headaches, fatigue, disturbed sleep and change in appetite. Due to stress a person mentally experiences frequent memory lapse, constant negative thinking, distortion of truth, difficulty in focusing, rigid attitude, indecisiveness and may also become critical of self and others. Emotionally, the person may become anxious, worried, nervous, fearful, moody, depressed, tearful, lonely, and experience lack of confidence and dissatisfaction. Behaviorally stressed people are seen as isolated, impatient, aggressive, uncooperative, short-tempered, impulsive, and hyperactive with increased dependence on alcohol and drugs. To combat physical symptoms of stress, healthy diet & lifestyle and adequate exercise with ample sleep is a must. As stress not only affects physically but also mentally, emotionally and behaviourally, only the above mentioned changes wouldn’t help us completely to combat stress. We have to look deeper into psychological factors and combat them too with relaxation and other psychological interventions.

If stress is impactful on every individual now days in their daily life how can it be different for people who are diagnosed with diabetes? Stress has a huge correlation with people who have been diagnosed with diabetes. This correlation between stress and diabetes is not limited to the regular daily living stress but is much more profound. The diagnosis of diabetes brings along with it a label of lifelong illnesses and lifelong restrictions which would be caused due to a necessity to regularly manage the blood sugar level. Along with the diagnosis also comes financial pressure of medication and care giving responsibility to the family members which adds the stress for not just the patient but also for the family members.  

Stress is commonly also known to be a hyperglycaemic situation because everyday stress triggers "fight or flight" mechanism in individuals leading to a series of very dramatic bodily changes including increased blood sugar. A healthy individual can control blood sugar but in patients with diabetes managing blood sugar becomes difficult. Thus further emphasizes the importance of stress management in patients with diabetes.

To conclude it can be said that stress has been one of the most serious health issues of the 21st century and a worldwide epidemic. All of us need to combat it. For patients with diabetes the profound impact of stress needs to be addressed with proper psychological interventions by the experts.