Stress does not cause diabetes, but it can affect your blood sugar levels and how you care for your condition.
In addition to the normal ups and downs of life, managing diabetes itself can be a cause of stress. It’s not always easy to live with it, and it can also feel harder when many people don’t understand it.
You can't avoid stressful situations, but there are things you can do to make it easier to deal with them. This will help stop stress from building up and affecting your emotional health.
Learn what stress is, how it affects diabetes, and what you can do to change it.
What is stress?
Stress is your body and mind's reaction to new or difficult situations. This could be something short-term, like worrying about a presentation you have to give at work the next day. Or go to a party on the weekend where you don’t know many people. It could also be something physical, such as an accident or illness.
Or you may have less immediate but more ongoing worries about things like money, relationships, or coping with the loss of someone close to you.
Stress affects you physically, emotionally, and mentally.
How stress affects diabetes
If you're stressed, your body releases stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline. This should give you a boost of energy for your "fight or flight" response. But the hormone actually makes it harder for insulin to function properly, called insulin resistance. Since energy can't get into your cells, your blood sugar levels rise.
If your blood sugar levels are too high, it's called hyperglycemia (full name hyperglycemia).
If the stress doesn't go away, your blood sugar levels will remain high and your risk of diabetes complications will be higher. It can also start to affect your emotional health by affecting your mood and how you take care of yourself.
But there are things you can do to reduce stress.
Diabetes stress
Diabetes can often be stressful, especially in the early years after you are diagnosed. It can feel difficult having to pay close attention to what you eat and having a lot of new things to learn and remember. This may mean that you now have to check your blood sugar levels frequently or give yourself daily injections. Worrying what the results will say or feeling anxious about needles can be very stressful.
Some diabetics also worry about hypotension when their blood sugar levels are too low. Wondering when they are going to happen and managing them when they happen can be stressful. You may have heard this called low-grade anxiety, and there are things you can do to manage these feelings.
At times, some people may begin to feel overwhelmed by their diabetes and feel frustrated and miserable about having it. Some people worry about complications, and others feel guilty if their diabetes management goes off track. That feeling of overwhelm can also get worse when you feel stressed out, caring for diabetes, and everything else becomes too much.
It's understandable if you feel this way from time to time – it's called diabetes distress, and you're not alone. If you don't deal with this pain, things can get worse and burnout can result. So discuss this with your healthcare team and get some advice.
Can stress cause diabetes?
Stress itself does not cause diabetes. But there is some evidence that there may be a link between stress and type 2 diabetes risk.
Researchers believe that high levels of stress hormones may prevent insulin-producing cells in the pancreas from functioning properly and reduce the amount of insulin they make. This, in turn, may lead to the development of type 2 diabetes.
Research is ongoing into whether people who release too much cortisol are at higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
Overeating during times of stress may also be a contributing factor in people developing type 2 diabetes. Some people cope with stress by eating more, which can cause them to gain a lot of weight. We've got more information on managing your emotions when it comes to food.
How to deal with stress
Everyone handles stressful situations differently. If you want to change the way you react and make things easier, try the stress manager tool on our learning area. Answer questions about how you cope with the demands of managing your condition to get an action plan to help you relieve stressful situations.
take care
In times of stress, it's even more important to remember to take care of yourself and be kind to yourself.
But we know it's not always easy. If you are particularly busy at work or taking care of your family, you may forget to eat or take your medicine.
It's important to strike a balance between taking care of yourself and not putting too much pressure on yourself to do everything perfectly. This can increase or cause stress. But we should realize that during times of stress, it’s easy to develop diabetes self-care habits, and that’s a good thing.
Getting enough sleep and adding time for exercise, rest, and relaxation into your daily life can help some people cope better with stress.
You don't need us to tell you that turning to comfort foods can raise your blood sugar and make you feel worse. Likewise, drinking more alcohol can affect your blood sugar levels.
It may be helpful to know how to think about diabetes differently. For example, take a diabetes education class and meet other people like you.
talk to others
Talking about what stresses you out can help. It might put something into perspective for you, or you might just feel relieved about getting things off your chest.
If you want to talk to someone about something you're worried about, you might consider talking to your health care team.
If you find that stress is affecting the way you manage your diabetes, your diabetes team may have some helpful advice for you. For example, they can help you determine when your insulin may need to be adjusted.
Even if the things you're stressed about may have nothing to do with diabetes, that's okay. Getting management support is important. Getting support may start to help you think about how you cope with stress and think about problems, and what changes you can make to make things easier.
