Diabetes diagnosis, whether you are young or old, can have an earth-shattering effect. As a chronic condition, diabetes requires life-long lifestyle alterations and a significant amount of attention and care to ensure a good outcome. This, alone, can be extremely daunting and cause higher levels of anxiety and an unshakable case of the blues.
Fortunately, there are 4 positive, unexpected side effects of diabetes. Although no one hopes to one day develop a chronic health condition, there are aspects of diabetes that, when shifting your perspective, can actually have a positive impact on your life.
#1. Awareness
Diabetes requires awareness—awareness of yourself, your body, and outside stimuli. Most people without diabetes do not know how to detect significant changes in blood sugar, and will likely not recognize the symptoms of needing a blood sugar pick-up, or a need to lower high blood sugar. Men and women with diabetes have a unique awareness of their own bodies and their bodies’ needs, and can likely examine their moods, physical behavior, and mental acuity with more accuracy and scrutiny than someone who has not been diagnosed with diabetes.
#2. Empathy
Nothing empowers and enriches empathy quite like your own pain. Diabetes is a painful and difficult diagnosis, often requiring massive dietary changes, and a drastic change in daily routines and habits. Although this can prove unfathomably difficult, having gone through something so arduous provides diabetic people with empathy for others with chronic health conditions, or even just people going through massive life changes in a way that very little else can.
#3. Health
Although some might see this as a negative, there is some power in having to pay close attention to diet, lifestyle, and exercise habits. While the impetus is not ideal, diabetes provides a push to get eating habits under control, to make exercise a normal routine, and to cultivate body awareness—all things that can have a powerful positive impact on one’s life. Diabetes can provide a leg up, so to speak, where health is concerned, if the proper steps are taken to manage and minimize its symptoms.
#4. Support
Finally, diabetes can offer a large, intricate web of support in your life. Meeting with other diabetes patients and talking, whether in-person or online, can provide you with a support network that extends far beyond simple symptoms and medical jargon because of the way diabetes infiltrates every aspect of your life. You can find support for business goals, weight loss or gain, academic pursuits, and even family pursuits, as all of these areas are significantly impacted by diabetes and require careful attention to your body and its needs. A network of support from others going through similar experiences can make all the difference in the world between feeling hope in your diagnosis, and feeling dread.
While no one hopes to develop a chronic condition, there are some aspects of a diabetes diagnosis that can prove uplifting. With proper treatment and self-care, diagnosis does not have to be a sentence, but a road to recovery.
