5 ways to stay positive and manage your diabetes better

Your mental and physical health are closely intertwined. Here are a few ways to help you manage your diabetes better by nixing negativity from your life.

Start your day by setting positive intentions for how you want your day to go and what you'll need to do to make sure it happens. Do you have your medications organized and your monitor ready to go? When will you fit in your daily walk? If you have a hectic day ahead, think about specific strategies you'll use to help you stay calm, such as deep breathing.

Remember that keeping your stress levels in check will help you manage your blood sugar better. You can write down your thoughts and answers, just think about them, or pray to a higher power to help you succeed.

When a "downer" thought threatens to drag you into the deep, fight back. If you find yourself thinking that you'll never lose weight or get your blood sugar under control, tell yourself "no!" Do it in your firmest, most commanding voice, either in your head or out loud. Sometimes this is all it takes to stop nagging, negative thoughts from snowballing into a defeatist attitude.

Once you've successfully stalled a negative thought, it's time to put something more positive in its place. If you were thinking along the lines of, "I'll never change," or "I'll always be sick," try to be more objective, specific and fair with yourself. Are there other ways for you to look at the situation? For example, "I'm feeling lousy right now. Maybe my blood sugar is low. I'll check it and see if I should have a snack."

Having a can-do attitude starts with being willing to make changes in your life to improve your health. But being diagnosed with a chronic disease like diabetes can send a person through a series of emotions similar to the stages of grief. You may find yourself skipping stages or regressing to stages you already went through.

Denial: "This can't be happening to me!" If you are feeling disbelief or numbness about your diabetes, you might be in denial. A certain level of denial in the beginning can be positive. It protects you from over-worrying about all the possible outcomes of having a progressive disease.

Anger: "Why is this happening to me?" It's true that you didn't cause your own diabetes. Your genes played a big part. So it's not unnatural to be angry at having the condition. But anger is most useful when you channel it in a positive way — like becoming determined to do absolutely everything in your power to beat the disease.

Bargaining: If you're a person of faith you may catch yourself making deals with God. Something like "I'll be extra careful about eating healthy and exercising if you'll keep me off insulin." That's bargaining.

Depression: "I don't care anymore." This is the worst stage to get stuck in because when you're depressed you're much less likely to take good care of your health. If your depression lasts more than two weeks or becomes severe, call your doctor for help.

Acceptance: "I'm ready for whatever comes."

You're eating better. You've started exercising more. You're checking your blood sugar on schedule. In general, you're a competent person who's succeeded at other things in life. In short, the deck is stacked in favour of you succeeding at managing your diabetes. Focus on these "success" cards in the deck, not on any perceived "doomed-to-fail" cards.