Diabetes is a serious condition and can affect you in so many ways including your moods. Does Type 2 Diabetes Cause Mood Swings? So much has to do with your diet, but then again doesn’t everything seem to be that way? Having diabetes it’s always about checking your blood sugar levels constantly. And that can affect your mood for sure.
Why do you Feel Moody when you’re a Diabetic?
Stress levels are associated with controlling your diabetes because let’s face it stress affects everything we do. It affects our moods for sure and it’s apparent to the people around us when it happens. Nobody likes going through mood changes and nobody likes having diabetes either.
Diabetes can be a killer with the side effects that it contributes to your moodiness and mood changes all the time. And it’s particularly hard on the people we care about as far as friends and family.
Having your blood sugars bouncing up and down and all over the place causes anxiety, nervousness, and confusion to say the least. That’s not healthy.
Tips to Control Your Blood Sugar and Mood Swings
So having diabetes is stressful enough, now you have to be very aware of what you’re eating and your diet. One is hard enough without the other, right? Who needs both? Maybe one day you’re checking your blood sugar for the hundredth time and it just gets to you and turns your mood bad and ruins your day. The moodiness sets in and can last for who knows how long.
You can become very irritable and sad especially when you’re hypoglycemic and your blood sugars become dangerously low. You can also become confused when you’re hyperglycemic, usually more when you’re type 1 diabetic as opposed to type 2 diabetic. You’re more likely to experience depression and anxiety from roller coaster blood glucose readings.
Now, symptoms can disappear once your blood sugars return to normal. When you have changes in your mental status and your mood, it can be a red flag that your blood sugars are not in the normal range. Some folks may have symptoms that are not critical enough to warrant a diagnosis of a mental illness. But the issue is that if you have diabetes it can have a huge effect on your life.
It’s not an easy task to stick to a regular healthy diet sometimes but in order to help control your weight and your diabetes, it’s a necessity. Blood sugar levels can be more manageable if you eat at regular intervals and maintain the same portion sizes as well.
If you get used to eating at the same times with the same sized portions, then you are less likely to spike your sugar levels and curb your hunger pains and this will help with any moodiness that can result from not following these tasks.
Exercise is always a big part of being healthy and controlling your diabetes, your weight, and ultimately your moods. It’s a good idea to check your sugars before and after exercising. If you happen to be down in the dumps, feeling low, or just going through moodiness, then exercise will help you with dealing with these moods.
The exercise helps to “work it off.” And when your exercise is finished you’ll feel much better and your sugars will be lower too.
If you are currently taking medications, then you should be taking them religiously when you’re supposed to be and at the same time checking your blood glucose levels. This helps to ensure that your levels are in the normal range and that your moods are in the good mode.
If you decide to make changes, even the smallest change can have a big effect on your diabetes, your health, and your chances of going through those “moodiness periods.”
It’s important and beneficial for you to join some sort of diabetes self management program to help you in learning how to become healthier and maintain a healthy weight which will also help in controlling your blood sugar and diabetes.
Having a support network that is strong and there for you is wonderful, but you can also reach out to friends and family for help too. It can help prevent you from going through so much moodiness related to your diabetes.
Check Out this Very Interesting Video Below about Diabetes & Mood Swings
Helping Others with Coping with Moods From Diabetes
Whether you are a diabetic or not you can help others with coping with diabetes and mood swings especially if you’ve gone through it yourself. As long as you understand why someone is experiencing moodiness from diabetes is a huge benefit in helping them. You can sit down and talk and ask them if there is anything that you can do to help them. Just having someone there for them is a huge plus!
Joining an activity together such as yoga, or an exercise or craft class, or whatever your interests may be can keep them busy and active and help them have a better frame of mind to avoid the negative moods and at the same time help in lowering theirs and your blood sugar too.
Talking to and supporting someone with diabetes can be a tremendous help with anxieties, mood swings, and fears that come from their diabetes condition.
This works both ways too. Someone could be the one helping you too. It’s always better to go through this with others than by yourself. Together you can make decisions as to whether a visit to the doctor is required and what for.
Diabetes and blood sugars can wreak havoc on your body and your mind. When the mood swings are happening you want to be on top of them if they are related to the diabetes.
More Facts About Diabetes Taking a Toll on Your Emotions
While type 1 and type 2 diabetes affect your physical health, it also affects your mental health in many ways. Many folks may not realize that they become moody for different reasons.
And they may not even attribute diabetes as one of if not the main reason. It can sneak up on you and before you know it, you’ve exploded!
And it’s not always just a bad mood, it can be a depressed state that you go into. 25% of people with diabetes, type 1 or type 2, develop long term symptoms of depression.
It really affects your life because it can involve so many different emotional changes such as a low concentration level, feeling guilty, being sad, lacking energy, being bored, feeling like you’re worthless, and having changes in your appetite and your sleep patterns.
These can happen gradually or just happen all of the sudden and either way they can remain for quite some time. This would be the time to consult a professional because when you have depression that isn’t going away, it makes it much harder to control your blood sugars and it is linked to having worsened complications from diabetes and in turn outcomes that are horrible. A professional can help with therapy and possible medications.
There is something called glycemic variability which is blood sugar levels that are constantly changing. This causes significant changes in your mood and affects your quality of life. So it’s obviously majorly important to control your blood sugar levels. You don’t need and don’t want to experience any negative moods or emotions.
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11 Coping Strategies for Moodiness
1) Schedule
It’s vital that you stick to a regular schedule in order to control any moodiness or mood swings. You want to run your errands, eat your meals, exercise, pay bills, take medications, etc on or about the same time every day if possible. This helps in controlling mood swings because people who are bipolar do not adapt well to changes.
2) Write it Down
I am a stickler for this. How long does it take to write something down so that you don’t forget it? Making notes of meetings, events, appointments and keeping track of everything you do can help you in preventing and triggering moodiness.
3) Keep Moving
Again, exercise of any kind is a huge help in avoiding changes in your moods. You don’t have to run a marathon everyday. Begin slowly with short walks as much as you can and try to get in at least some exercise most days of the week. Shoot for 30 minutes every day!
4) Avoid
Try and avoid things like alcohol, caffeine, and drugs. If you don’t want to be kept up at night and have bad maniacal experiences then cut back or cut out sodas and coffee especially too close to bedtime. And drugs and alcohol may have effects on how your medications work and this can trigger a mood episode so be careful.
5) Sleeping
You want to have great sleeping habits so that you will wake up relaxed and refreshed and will avoid any moodiness. Relax before bedtime by listening to soft music, taking a warm bath, or reading a book. Make sure your bedroom is dark and quiet and that you wind down before sleep time.
6) Stress
This is the big one. Stress is a killer and you need to avoid it like the plague. It’s the most influential factor when it comes to your moods and especially if your blood sugars are out of whack.
Have your friends and family help you in any way possible to reduce your stress levels. Try some relaxation exercises such as visualization, meditation, and yoga. This helps tremendously!
7) Healthy Fats
Including plenty of healthy fats such as salmon, coconut oil, nuts, olive oil, and avocados is important in controlling your moods.
8) Avoid Sugars
Sugar is the enemy no matter how you look at it. It’s the worst thing that you can feed your body because it sends your glucose levels on the up and down roller coaster ride. This is going to put you in mood change mode big time and fast!
9) Caution on the Wheat
Whether or not you have an issue with gluten, you should still be careful with wheat. Wheat has a high glycemic index score. Just two slices of wheat bread will raise your blood sugar levels just as much as having one candy bar! YIKES! Be careful!
10) Fish Oil
Fish oil supplements are a great way to manage your moods. The Omega 3 fatty acids are very healthy and beneficial.
11) Additional Supplements
Other supplements that can help with mood swings are vitamin B6, St. John’s wort, magnesium, and calcium.
The bottom line with any supplements or anything to do with your health and any changes that you are making should be discussed with your doctor.
Medical disclaimer
The information that I provide on my website is purely based on my own personal experience and subsequent research into the diabetes disease. It is not intended to take the place of medical advice,diagnosis and treatment. Care and investigation should always be sought from an appropriate health care provider. I am happy to discuss my own symptoms, diagnosis and history of my diabetes disease but want to stress that I am not medically trained in any way. All opinions on my website are my own. I have created this site as a way to share information and experiences.
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And Finally
Does Type 2 Diabetes Cause Mood Swings? Moodiness can be a problem, but if it’s brought on by diabetes and uncontrollable blood sugars, then you have options to get it under control. I hope that you have learned something here 🙂
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Interesting article on diabetes and mood swings. I had never realized that the two were linked. In fact, when you see mood swings you will not directly think of diabetes. It is very unfortunate for people to have a sickness that does not only affect your body but also the mind. And yes that can have a very bad effect on your quality of life.
Hi Jerry,
It’s amazing to learn just how many things are linked to diabetes.
Diabetes does cause moodiness and mood swings.
This can really affect your life big time.
And yes it’s sad to think that a disease such as diabetes can affect you both physically and mentally.
So let’s get a grip on diabetes for the sake of our mental health as well as our physical.
Thanks for your input!
~Rob
I appreciate your thorough discussion of diabetes and mood swings.
My girlfriend is probably diabetic. I say probably because about two years ago, she was diagnosed with diabetes. The diagnosis scared her and she did all the right things to bring her blood sugar down. She exercised, ate healthily, and lost weight.
Then life happened. Things got crazy for about six months. She eats fast food to soother her emotions and put the weight back on plus another 20 pounds. Now, I catch her crying for no reason and she refuses to test her blood sugar.
What can I do to encourage her to lose weight and eat properly without insulting her?
Hi Gary,
I’m sorry that your girlfriend has diabetes but it’s not a death sentence by any means.
Sometimes exercise is the best thing you can do for your diabetes along with eating properly.
I’m not a doctor or a psychiatrist but my recommendation is to talk to one because that’s most likely while there is a weight issue.
Testing your blood sugar is crucial when you have diabetes. It’s the moods that diabetes puts us into that can cause the mood swings and binge eating.
Exercise can be the best medicine in this case along with consulting with the doctor.
Thank you for your comments!
I have friends that have diabetes. I realize that some of them go through major mood swings during the day. Sometimes, they are extremely happy and aggressive.
Other times, they are just downright quiet and moody. I always thought that it is a “part” of them without realizing that it might be uncontrolled blood sugar levels.
You see, these friends of mine have that “I don’t give a **** about what I eat, and I just eat it” kind of attitude.
With that kind of attitude, I doubt they will feel very normal throughout the day. Not to mention they are really addicted to coffee, not the decaf type either. When they exercise with me, they do feel better so that is a plus.
Anyway, I am going to tell them this so they fix their dietary problems. One question is this, do they have to give up on foods they crave forever? What do you think?
I think we all know someone who has diabetes, right? And mood swings can be something every person can go through but especially with diabetes.
Many some folks don’t care about what they eat or maybe it’s hard to resist temptation foods but either way the results are the same.
I agree that exercise is a better thing to be addicted to and that would brighten your mood.
And I don’t feel that anyone has to give up on their foods forever. It’s just learning that bad choices are not good and can affect your moods. You can have a “treat” once in a while. Just not to overdo it.
Thanks for your input! 🙂