Living well with diabetes, in both body and mind 

By Susan Cabouli, PhD,
Clinical Psychologist

Diabetes affects not only your body, but it often negatively impacts your mind and emotions. Diabetes can effect how much control you feel you have in life, and can even effect your sense of who you are. It’s important not only to learn what your body needs to be healthy with diabetes but also know how to manage the mental and emotional stress that comes with any chronic illness.

All illnesses, including diabetes, depend on our immune system to stay connected to our body’s natural healing processes. Stress from a chronic condition weakens our immune system’s ability to protect our body from damage caused by an illness. You did not choose diabetes, but you can learn to make choices that will improve your quality of life with diabetes.

Learning what is the best lifestyle for you is the first important step to living well with diabetes. This typically includes exercise, good nutrition and, for some, medication. Knowing these things, however, is not enough. You also need to practice them. This is where learning to cope with your stress is important. Stress interferes with your ability to practice what you know and follow through with your doctor’s and dietitian’s recommendations.

Stress from diabetes can come from a variety of sources. You can be stressed by your medical team that isn’t always available; by family or friends who don’t understand the importance of keeping to your food plan; by the extra efforts you need to take to stay healthy; and by a sense that diabetes has turned your body against you.

It can be a challenge to live with diabetes without feeling your quality of life is diminished. It is a challenge you can best meet when your body and mind come together and learn to live as the team they were meant to be. This kind of team-work often involves not only good medical care but also good psychotherapeutic support. You can choose from among a variety of therapy approaches which one is right for you.

Good mental health for good physical health

Health psychology is a rapidly growing specialty which helps people accept and respond well to their physical illness. You can develop a positive relationship with diabetes with help from a health psychologist or a general psychologist who is experienced in therapies that are known to help clients with chronic illness. The following are 3 examples of psychotherapies known to help with physical illness.

CBT: One well researched approach is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). CBT helps you be more aware of self-defeating thoughts, feelings and behaviors and change them so you can relate more positively and effectively to your diabetes.

EMDR: Another well researched therapy is Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). EMDR helps reduce your distress with diabetes in the present; it explores your past that may be adding to your present distress; and also looks to your future and how you want to live with diabetes.

IFS: Internal Family Systems (IFS) is another therapy approach that helps resolve emotional and mental conflicts which can come up with diabetes. For example, one part inside you wants to make healthy changes but another part doesn’t want to make those changes. IFS considers what is important for each part in the context of what is best for the whole person.

If you’d like to try CBT, EMDR or IFS, you can search for a therapist who specializes in any of those approaches on Psychology Today’s website. Some people have also benefited from self help books that are more geared to CBT’s approach.