COPING SKILLS TO OVERCOME DIABETES http://ushaprabhakar.com/kyani/

1. HOLISTIC APPROACH TO
DIABETES SELF MANAGEMENT
COPING SKILLS TO OVERCOME
STRESS

2. What Are The Causes Of Stress
• Diabetes is a disease where you have to be
constantly monitoring your sugar levels
because it has a lot of impact on how you feel
on a day to day basis. Too much or too little of
it makes you feel like you are on a roller
coaster in terms of your moods. Not only that,
when you let it go up and down it can create
more complications in the long run.

3. Controlling Diabetes Is A 24/7 Job
• When we are first diagnosed with diabetes, depending
upon the intensity of it we all feel symptoms of hunger
and fatigue and it becomes very stressful wondering
how to plan the meals and take time to exercise and
get into a new unpleasant routine of monitoring the
blood sugar levels. Like anything else in life when you
are trying to get used to a new way of life, it is
confusing but with persistence one can master it like
riding a bike. So in the beginning when you think you
almost got control of your sugar levels, suddenly you
find that due to a little bit of a lapse your sugar levels
are going haywire and you need to again pay close
attention to it.

4. Mental Stress
• This occupies your mind so much that you feel you are
losing your handle on other matters in your life like
relationships and other responsibilities
• It becomes a constant juggling act between paying a lot of
attention on yourself and other responsibilities in life which
are a necessary and unavoidable part of your life.
• When you go to the doctor he/she doesn’t talk about this
part of Diabetes Self Management. They are more
concerned with data like your daily blood sugar readings,
whether you are eating right, exercising and that you have
not developed any complications that they need to keep an
eye on. Even then, they can miss it if you don’t talk about
your symptoms openly so they know what to look for.

5. Other Stress Factors
• When I first started going to the doctor or to
the Diabetes educator or the dietician who
could educate me on meal planning, I would
have to fill out a form and one of the fields to
check is whether you have depression or not. I
was bewildered when I first saw it because I
felt that everybody goes through periods of
depression in their lives and that is quite
normal. So I would answer an emphatic, ‘NO’.

6. • I was determined not to admit depression and
that was my way of being strong and letting
my mind rule over my body.
• The other symptoms that could sneek up on
you are things like feelings of guilt, fatigue and
decreased energy, loss of interest in things,
irritability and restlessness, overeating or loss
of appetite, sleeping too little or too much.

7. So What Are The Coping Skills?
1. HAVING A POSITIVE ATTITUDE: Very early on my initial
diagnosis I had decided that I was going to be brave no
matter what happens. I think I got that attitude from
doing all my spiritual practices of meditation and yoga
and educating myself in various systems of philosophy.
• I had a lot of varied interests in life like reading non
fiction extensively, singing, dancing and making friends
with spiritual minded people specifically and I had
started writing down my thoughts on my blog. I
decided I wanted to share my thoughts and whatever
else I found on body, mind and spirit level .

8. FIND SUPPORT
• Find A Support Group: The symptoms are so
varied in Diabetes and everyone’s challenges are
so different and the solutions they find are also
different.
• Be Non-Judgmental: To be supportive to others,
be non judgmental. The causes of diabetes
doesn’t result only out of a bad life style or bad
choice of foods but there is also a certain
element of genetics and environmental factors,
etc.

9. HOLISTIC APPROACH BY WAY OF BODY,
MIND AND SPIRIT
• 2. KNOW THYSELF : We hear this saying in
most scriptures. To know ourselves is very
important so we can live a healthy and
balanced life not only on the level of the spirit
but also on the level of the body and mind.
• The ultimate goal is to grow spiritually but
without a healthy body and mind you cannot
soar into the high realms of the spiritual.

11. • 3. Protect Your Body: Without a healthy body we cannot
accomplish anything in this world and so whether you have
Diabetes or not, we all need to take care of the body with
proper diet and exercise and that can only be attained
through diligent consideration of what we put into it. There
is information galore out there and we are culturally
different and have our likes and dislikes so choose a diet
that helps you control your sugar levels by monitoring it
every time you have a meal and at least get an average of a
couple of readings. Have an open mind and consider
supplements in addition to the medicines you take. I have
always taken supplements to cope with the fatigue
syndrome of Diabetes. And that is what has kept me out of
major trouble so far. If you want to discuss the various
choices out there we can do that and exchange notes on a
personal level as time permits.

12. SPIRITUAL
• 4. RIGHT THINKING: Yes, right thinking is very
important because now-a-days everybody is
talking about thoughts and how it affects your
life. James Allen, in his book, As A Man Thinketh
has so wonderfully talked about how we manifest
our lives by the quality of our thoughts.
• PRACTICE AFFIRMATIONS: Be kind, gentle and
loving to yourself. I love to listen to Louise L. Hay
on “How To Love Yourself” and “Heal Your Life,”
because what she says totally resonates with me.

13. PRACTICE OF THESE COPING SKILLS GIVES
YOU MASTERY OVER YOURSELF
• We human beings are like bouncing balls. We may fall,
but we definitely have the resilience to recover from
any kind of illness, depression or adversity and bounce
back.
• When we overcome fear of what is going to happen in
the future or of death we enjoy life more fully.
Important thing is to live life qualitatively with the
above coping tools and faith in a higher power that is
always protecting us. In a recent study they have
shown that when a group of diabetics who prayed vs. a
group who did not, there was better control of sugars
in those that prayed.

14. POWERFUL MIND
• It is said, ‘an idle mind is a devil’s workshop’!
• We can elevate ourselves or degrade ourselves by what
we choose to think. So “being” in harmony is more
fruitful than being in chaos.
• With that said I want to conclude this presentation
with a short 5 mins of silence in meditation by chanting
Om. The actual meaning of Om is I. Even Jesus said, “I
AM” the way! So we will chant Om while really
attempting to be in our own supreme pure
consciousness. This is just a sample of what we can
experience when the mind is silent.

16. GROUP FACILITATION MODULE 7
• Did a google hangout with Sara Park, Eileen
Slovik, Paulette Williams, and Malak Bayaa
• We had some technical difficulties in the
beginning with the connection on the hangout
but eventually we got started.
• I didn’t really expect any of them to have
diabetes so I wasn’t sure of how they would
introduce themselves in the mock group
discussion but it so turned out that every body
was familiar with diabetes at some level

17. • I purposely made my presentation only 15 slides long
and did talk over and above what my slides gave out
but still finished my presentation in 20 minutes.
• I had included a sample meditation for 5 mins. But Sara
opted out of it but the other 3 stayed for the
meditation. Malak Bayaa really liked the meditation
part and so did Paulette. Eileen said my method was
different from what she was used to but over all she
said it was good. However, I felt I wasn’t really sure
what the challenges and coping skills of the other
diabetics really was and so I wasn’t sure if I had
covered enough ground. But I felt I could do a better
job with some more practice.