Although diabetes is quite a common disease, this doesn’t mean that it should be taken lightly.
For those that leave their condition to prosper, their life expectancy can suffer. Apart from treatment from a doctor, the patient also has to make their contributions to ensure that their diabetes is managed correctly.
The key here is to prevent it from progressing to an extent where it could potentially be dangerous.
Working closely with your doctor, along with making lifestyle changes, is an excellent way to help manage your diabetes.
Because it’s a disease that has no cure, this means that you’re stuck with it for life. The most that you can do is for you to make your own efforts in managing your disease, through better diabetes care.
Here’s how a positive change in your lifestyle can help you live a healthier life.
4 Diabetes Care Tips:
1. Have Diet That Keep The Blood Sugar Levels At Balance.
When a person receives the diabetes diagnosis, the blood sugar levels have to undergo regular monitoring, which can now be done through a diabetes app.
Depending on the type of diabetes that one has, you can either belong to the group with blood sugar that spikes too high, or on the reverse, also those that are dangerously low.
This fact is precisely why blood sugar monitoring is a requirement for patients with diabetes daily.
Here, the lifestyle change that works to the patient’s advantage is to switch to healthier and diabetes friendly meals every day.
There are plenty diets that can help you be healthier but there are specific ones when it comes to managing your blood sugar levels.
While choosing healthy food can be quite tricky, here’s a list of some of the best foods to take, for a healthier lifestyle.
Fatty fish such as salmon, mackerel, sardines, and herring, as they reduce the risk of stroke and heart disease, which is also common for diabetic patients.
Hard boiled eggs, as they contain enough protein to prevent the blood sugar from rising too high when you eat.
Yogurt with berries, which can help reduce inflammation and prevent damage to the pancreas, which is the key organ responsible for controlling blood sugar levels.
Leafy green vegetables, as these are low in calories.
Almonds, they can help control blood sugar in people with diabetes.
2. Exercise and Keep Your Life Expectancy High.
Unfortunately for diabetic patients, their life expectancy can also be quite lower than individuals without diabetes.
This is because diabetes can result in complications, usually pertaining to the heart, liver, and pancreas. When this happens, it can be fatal.
But, a good way for one to beat this is to make lifestyle changes. Engaging in regular physical exercise, for instance, keeps your heart healthy.
Even as little as an active movement for half an hour can do wonders for the overall condition of your heart.
Exercise has many benefits, especially for diabetics. It improves the chances of insulin working better in your body. It helps to lower your blood sugar levels. It increases your endurance throughout the entire day. It helps to reduce body fat. It enhances the quality of life
3. Manage Your Daily Stress.
People with diabetes are also under a lot of stress. Naturally, no one wants to have to go through a lot of maintenance medication every single day. For others, they have to inject insulin.
Then, there’s also the stress and worries of not being allowed to eat this and that. Unfortunately, stress is also one of the contributing factors for blood sugar levels to rise.
When this happens, it can cause you not to manage your diabetes well.
For instance, you may forget to exercise, or you may resort to eating unhealthy, comfort meals.
To help reduce your stress, follow through these following lifestyle changes. Reduce caffeine and sugar intake, keep a positive mantra at all times, avoid cigarettes and alcohol, practice stress relaxation techniques such as yoga, get enough sleep.
4. Manage The Risk Of Complications.
Diabetes is quite a manageable disease, up until it reaches a point where it’s already beyond control. When diabetes progresses, this can lead to illnesses that are serious and potentially life threatening.
Then, when these start to rise, your body may have a hard time coping. More medicines will be prescribed, and your body’s internal organs may only fail.
Some of the common diseases that can arise, as complications are the following. Ulcer and gastrointestinal conditions. Cardiovascular diseases, such as heart problems and stroke. High blood pressure. Liver disease. Infections.
With the reasons given above, you can now see why changing and improving your lifestyle can help manage your battle with diabetes.
Diabetes care doesn’t have to be so difficult. Just because you’ve already got maintenance medication, this also doesn’t mean that it ends there. When you make that extra effort to make lifestyle changes, you’re improving the chances of living a better quality of life, even with your diabetes.
Even if there’s no cure, there are many ways for you to have better management of your disease.
Now you’ve also seen that as small a change as practicing a better lifestyle does wonders for your life.