Mental health and diabetes: Introduction
Despite the seemingly unrelated connection between mental health and diabetes, it’s important for people to understand the relationship between stress and blood sugar control. While patients take diabetes medications to help control their blood sugar, a lesser-known complication in their diabetes journey can make their treatment more difficult.
Stress is a common but overlooked factor in diabetes management. Unfortunately, most patients aren’t likely to think about changes in their hormones and how that might affect their blood sugar treatment.
However, they should.
Stress can play a pivotal role in the relationship between mental health and diabetes, with stress hormones influencing blood sugar levels that could affect patients taking medication for their diabetes.
Understanding stress is important for long-term blood sugar control. In this article, we’ll give you important information on mental health and diabetes.
Some main questions this article will answer:
- Does stress make diabetes worse?
- Can stress affect how well diabetes medications work?
- How can people with diabetes manage stress more effectively?
And for those who may need to find affordable diabetes medications, we’ll give you some powerful solutions at the end of this article.
Understanding the Link Between Stress, Mental Health and Diabetes
What Is Stress and How Does the Body Respond?
Stress is the body’s reaction to demands or challenges. These emotional reactions can be expressed through physical, mental, and emotional responses to stimuli.
Cortisol
When stress hits, cortisol, the primary stress hormone, increases blood sugar for energy, helps a person rapidly increase awareness, and slows nonessential functions.
Adrenaline
Adrenaline also helps deliver more oxygen and glucose to the body’s systems.
Glucagon
Along with both cortisol and adrenaline, glucagon also has an important role. It signals the liver to release stored sugar and create new glucose, which provides quick fuel for the “fight-or-flight” response.
Even though short-term stress (Eustress) is considered good because it can help you focus or react quickly to danger, long-term stress (Chronic stress/Distress) can be overwhelming. It can lead to burnout, anxiety, depression, and even health problems.
Why People With Diabetes Are More Vulnerable to Stress
While some may think that people with diabetes do not need to manage their stress levels, the truth is that those with diabetes and similar conditions are in fact more vulnerable to stress. Some of the factors may include:
- Daily demands of diabetes management.
- Emotional burden of chronic illness
- Financial stress related to medication costs
- Fear of complications and blood sugar fluctuations.
Mental health and diabetes: Does Stress Make Diabetes Worse?
The truth is, mental health and diabetes are directly related. Stress and blood sugar control require a careful, continued observation of both. Without regulating stress, a person could find themselves suffering complications from the combination of long-term stress and diabetes.
How Stress Directly Affects Blood Sugar Levels
When a person is suddenly experiencing stress, hormones rapidly increase glucose production in the liver. This means more and more glucose is dumped into the bloodstream, creating a massive available supply in case the person needs a lot of quick energy to fight or run.
Likewise, a person’s insulin sensitivity is reduced during stress to ensure the glucose is bioavailable within the bloodstream. Not only do adrenaline and cortisol signal the body to release glucose into the bloodstream, as well as increase glucose production in the liver, but glucagon works directly against insulin to suppress its ability to draw glucose into muscles and cells, saving it for the muscles and energy systems that need it during the stressful event.
While a person’s blood sugar level is affected during periods of stress, stress-related behaviors can also cause complications for people, especially those with diabetes.
Behaviors like overeating, missed meals, and poor sleep all have a massive effect on a person’s health, and sadly, these behaviors often increase the longer the stress is.
Chronic Stress and Long-Term Diabetes Outcomes
Sadly, long-term stress can cause plenty of issues. Knowing the risk of these complications is important to your mental health and diabetes.
Some of the outcomes of chronic stress and long-term diabetes include:
- Increased risk of hyperglycemia
- Higher A1C levels over time
- Greater likelihood of complications
- Emotional burnout and diabetes distress
- Increased risk of hyperglycemia
Can Stress Affect the Effectiveness of Diabetes Medications?
In short, yes: stress can affect the effectiveness of diabetes medications. This is why understanding mental health and diabetes matters to a person with diabetes.
How Stress Can Change Medication Response
When a person undergoes a stress response, their body immediately goes into action. While many of the actions may not have an adverse effect on those with diabetes, the regulation of glucose can and does.
Since insulin resistance can be stress-induced, chronic stress can result in a long-term reduction in insulin sensitivity. This can even have such a drastic effect that a patient may need to alter their insulin dosage to compensate.
Similarly, as cortisol, adrenaline, and glucagon rise in the body during stressful situations, they may increasingly interfere with glucose-lowering drugs such as insulin shots. In stressful situations, the body seeks to maintain an increased blood glucose supply to ensure muscles and energy systems have what they need. This means the hormones that tell the body to produce more glucose and not use it where it’s not needed during a time of stress are in direct contradiction with typical diabetes medications that increase insulin sensitivity and aim to regulate blood glucose levels.
This may result in medications being “less effective” during high-stress periods.
Stress, Medication Adherence, and Consistency
While the physical nature of a diabetes patient’s stress response can cause complications with their medications, it’s not the only result they need to keep an eye on.
When dealing with chronic stress, a person can often feel anxious or depressed. This may cause missed doses or mistakes in dosing.
Financial stress can lead to rationing medication.
Of course, it’s important for those with diabetes to maintain consistent dosing for insulin and their GLP-1 medications, such as Ozempic and Trulicity.
The Role of Patient Assistance Programs in Stress Reduction
Those looking to access affordable diabetes medications do have options that offer powerful relief.
Thankfully, easing financial strain can sometimes be enough to help heal a person’s long-term stress.
One option that patients across America have been using to help lower their diabetes medication costs is the patient assistance program.
Whether it’s an insulin patient assistance program, Ozempic patient assistance program, or even a Trulicity patient assistance program, the savings for those who qualify are hard to beat.
Having consistent access to diabetes medication or a GLP-1 through a patient assistance program can mean an instant sigh of relief, release of stress and improved outcomes for those dealing with mental health and diabetes.
Patients looking to learn more about patient assistance programs should look into Prescription Hope. As a comprehensive medication access management service, Prescription Hope comes alongside patients and not only advocates for them throughout the patient assistance program application process, but continues to monitor and manage their medication access for as long as they’re a patient.
How Stress Impacts Different Types of Diabetes Medications
Each diabetes medication may be affected by stress in different ways.
Insulin: When adrenaline, cortisol, and glucagon increase glucose supply in the blood as well as lower insulin sensitivity, they can also hinder the effectiveness of an insulin shot. This is due to the body’s protection of an increased glucose supply in the bloodstream for fast uptake into muscles and energy systems that most need it, while limiting glucose availability to those that don’t.
GLP-1 Receptor agonists (Ozempic, Trulicity): Chronic stress means raised cortisol. Elevated cortisol can counteract GLP-1’s effectiveness, making it more difficult for the medication to help the body regulate glucose levels.
Plus, cortisol can increase eating and “comfort food” cravings, counteracting the hunger-suppression nature of GLP-1s.
Oral medications (metformin, sulfonylureas): Delayed gastrointestinal emptying may affect the absorption of oral medications, potentially impairing their proper function.
How to Manage Stress When Living With Diabetes
Those dealing with mental health and diabetes should implement these strategies to help regulate their body’s stress response.
Practical Stress Management Strategies
Mindfulness and relaxation techniques
- Draw a boundary on when work duties and tasks will end each day.
- Get outside regularly and spend time in nature.
- Meditate, pray, or spend time in calm reflection.
- Focus on your breathing.
Physical activity and its dual benefit for stress and glucose
Being active means walking, exercising, and getting your body in motion. Not only does this help relieve stress, but it can also help improve body composition, regulate blood sugar levels, and even increase insulin sensitivity.
Sleep quality and blood sugar regulation
Getting enough high-quality sleep helps lower cortisol levels, which improves blood sugar regulation and increases insulin sensitivity.
Nutrition habits that support mental and metabolic health
Eating natural, unprocessed, whole foods can make a world of difference for those dealing with mental health and diabetes. Healthy nutrition helps the body regulate blood glucose levels and can also improve mental health, mood, and emotional control.
Emotional and Social Support
When a person managing mental health and diabetes begins to make changes to their lifestyle choices, they should make sure to avoid neglecting the emotional and social support side of their approach, lowering their stress.
Mental health care: Mental health care not only provides a person with an outlet but can also offer guidance on how to better manage stressful situations when they arise.
Diabetes education and support groups: Joining a group of people who are dealing with diabetes means being among fellow diabetics. This gives an opportunity to share common events, solutions, strategies, and encouragement.
Talk to your provider about stress and burnout: Stress and burnout are real health conditions. That means your healthcare provider may have helpful insight into how you can better manage your stress, or into whether you’re suffering from burnout and don’t even realize it.
Reducing Financial Stress Around Diabetes Care
Dealing with the financial side of treating diabetes can sometimes be the most stressful aspect of the condition.
Be sure to explore all affordable options for diabetes medications. These options may include:
- Discount cards
- Coupons
- Government assistance
- Resource programs
- Patient Assistance Programs
Look into ways to save early, ensuring you can get the help you need and avoid skipping medications due to cost.
Conclusion
Sadly, many people managing mental health and diabetes do not realize how drastic an effect their long-term stress can have on their diabetes medication.
The reduction in blood sugar control, influence on the effectiveness of diabetes medications, and the increased emotional and physical health risks must all be carefully weighed out by a person and their healthcare provider.
Thankfully, stress is not unavoidable. Many people find success in implementing stress management techniques, which is critical to diabetes care.
And please, do not stop taking your diabetes medication due to financial strain. Many resources exist for affordable diabetes medication, such as:
- Insulin assistance programs
- Ozempic patient assistance programs
- Trulicity patient assistance programs
To enroll for programs like these, simply go to Prescription Hope’s online enrollment form and submit the completed form. Within 1 to 2 days, a trained advocate will contact you and determine whether you qualify.
You don’t have to allow stress to drastically affect your diabetes medication. Simply consult your doctor and implement stress-reduction strategies, and you may find that your chronic stress is a thing of the past.
