How Does Anxiety Impact Diabetes? A Biological Psychology and Clinical Psychology Podcast Episode.

For the past few months, I've been working as a teaching assistant in a special educational needs school and whilst there are lots of psychological reflections and lessons I could talk about, there is one I want to focus on. The link between anxiety and diabetes. This relationship is something I've seen firsthand multiple times as a teaching assistant and as an aspiring psychologist, I always enjoy learning about the relationship between psychological experiences, like anxiety, and how they impact our physical health like diabetes. Therefore, by the end of this biological psychology podcast episode, you'll learn how does anxiety impact diabetes, why does this happen and more. If you enjoy learning about the mind-body connection, clinical psychology and biopsychology, then this will be a brilliant episode for you. 

Today's psychology podcast episode has been sponsored by Biological Psychology. Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca.

Why Are We Talking About The Impact Of Anxiety On Diabetes?

There are a few reasons aspiring and qualified psychologists need to be aware of the link between stress, anxiety and diabetes. Firstly, you might be working in an anxiety service and you see the stress of the anxiety combined with the diabetes is maintaining the client's anxiety. The client is worried about developing diabetes complications, they're worried about their constantly high glucose levels and the diabetes medical professionals aren't sure what to do because the high glucose levels are caused by anxiety. Therefore, as part of the clinical work and the psychoeducation part of the intervention, we would need to educate the client about the link, so they understand if we decrease their anxiety, their diabetes should be easier to manage too. 

We cannot do this vital psychoeducation unless we fully understand the relationship ourselves.

We'll discuss some other benefits of reducing anxiety for diabetes later in the episode to. 

Secondly, if you want to get a job in clinical health psychology or be a part of a psychology team in a diabetes service, then you need to understand and be able to explain how psychological experiences impact physical health. As a result, by understanding the relationship between anxiety and diabetes, you'll be in a better position to write better job applications and give good interview answers.

Finally, for this section, as part of your psychology journey, you might become a teaching assistant to gain clinical experience. In our class, there's a lovely girl with type 1 diabetes and we've noticed there's a relationship between her anxiety and high glucose levels. She can be really anxious at school because of a boy who doesn't leave her alone and a difficult student scaring everyone, and her sugar levels are high. Yet as soon as she gets home, her levels are normal and in the safe range. 

As well as at the time of writing, I'm being diabetes trained to support a new student full-time, and this is some critical information I need to understand. I need to be aware of his anxiety (if he ever had any) so I can adapt my treatment, my management strategy and how I handle his care. 

How Does Stress and Anxiety Impact Diabetes?

Stress and anxiety impact diabetes because whenever you’re feeling stressed or threatened (a factor that makes you feel anxious), your body reacts by activating your fight-or-flight response. When this happens, your body releases the stress hormones, cortisol as well as adrenaline into your blood and this causes your breathing rate to increase. In turn, this leads to increases in blood sugar levels.

In addition, it’s important to note that the increased glucose levels from stress can lead to other long-term problems. Most importantly, this includes when you become burnt out, tired and you become physically and mentally exhausted so your diabetes becomes harder to manage.

Since what I’m learning as someone being trained in diabetes management is you seriously need to pay attention to the carbs in your food, how much insulin you need, how much insulin you’re actually putting into your needle and so on. As well as you need to remember to prime the needle, test it to ensure there are no air bubbles in the insulin and that you count to about ten when injecting yourself with insulin to ensure the full dose was delivered.

This all requires a lot of mental energy, focus and to be able to do this, you need to be in a good place.

Diabetes management gets a thousand times harder if you have negative mental health, you’re burnt out and you lack the ability to focus.

To apply this knowledge to my class, when the young girl was anxious about seeing a boy who was into her but she wasn’t into him. She would feel anxious, scared and stressed so physiologically her body was pumping adrenaline and cortisol into her blood to help her escape if needed (the flight response) and this caused her glucose levels to increase. Leading her to become dangerously high on multiple occasions. Yet once she got home and was removed from the situation with the perceived threat (seeing the boy), her body deactivated her fight-or-flight response, decreased the amount of stress hormones in her blood and her glucose levels stabilised and decreased.

Furthermore, it’s important to note that people with Type 1 diabetes have a more varied response to stress on their glucose levels. For example, typically stress leads to increased glucose levels, but in Type 1 Diabetes, it can lead to decreased levels too.

As a result, to apply this knowledge to aspiring or qualified psychologists, we can use this knowledge in our clinical work by explaining to clients what’s happening to their bodies when they become anxious with the stress hormones. Then we can explain how this has a knock-on effect for their diabetes, and the linking of their anxiety and symptoms to their diabetes might actually be a useful way to give them a tangible example that will aid their understanding of the mind-body connection. As well as you might be able to use diabetes management as a realistic goal that the client is motivated to work towards, and increase therapeutic engagement too.

How Does Mental Health Impact Diabetes Management?

In late 2024, the International Diabetes Foundation found that 77% of their 1,880 survey sample said that their diabetes diagnosis caused them depression, anxiety or another mental health outcome. As well as 55% of participants reported a fear of needles, 58% of participants have experienced stigma and discrimination because of their diabetes and 79% of participants developed diabetes burnout because of the strain and daily demands of diabetes treatment and management.

Now, this is why aspiring and qualified psychologists are so useful because all of these difficulties are not medical in the slightest. A psychologist is the best professional for a client with diabetes to talk about their anxiety, depression and their burnout. As a result of a psychologist can work with the client to develop strategies, techniques and adaptive coping mechanisms to decrease their burnout and the negative mental health impacts of treatment.

A medical professional cannot.

This is why it’s important for psychologists to become aware of diabetes, so we can help people with the condition, help them thrive and give them back control of their lives. Also, this will allow the client to live with their condition instead of their condition controlling their lives.

In addition, psychologists are brilliant for helping people treat, challenge and overcome their fears. When it comes to diabetes, psychologists can help people overcome their fear of needles. Perhaps they might use graded exposure, and this is only an idea, maybe a client would start off talking about needles, then seeing a cartoon image of a needle then an image of a real needle and then a video of a needle and so on until you start handling real needles to overcome your fear.

Furthermore, 75% of participants reported that diabetes burnout led to them stopping or interrupting their treatment and management because they were feeling overwhelmed or stressed. This is very dangerous because this can lead to the glucose levels being unregulated, them dropping and skyrocketing uncontrollably and if you don’t counteract the low or high levels, then this can lead to fatal complications. For example, a diabetic coma and death.

This is why as aspiring or qualified psychologists, we absolutely need to support people with diabetes to prevent burnout, empower them to look after their own health and give them tips and tricks to manage their mental health. Otherwise, they might burn out, stop their treatment and potentially experience very deadly consequences.

This is even more important when we find out that 75% of people with diabetes want more psychological and social support from their healthcare team. Psychologists are some of the best professionals to deliver this critical work that clients desperately need.

How To Recognise Stress in Diabetics?

In a moment, I’ll talk about some of the ways you can know if stress is affecting your glucose levels, but first, we need to understand how you recognise stress. This knowledge will allow you to understand what you’re looking for when you’re monitoring your stress levels.

Therefore, we probably know already that stress can directly impact your mental and physical health, and there are several signs of stress. For instance, some physical signs of symptoms of stress can include sleeping too much or too little, fatigue, general feelings of illness, headaches as well as stomach aches.

Other signs of stress can include you becoming restless, anxious, depressed, unmotivated or irritable. As well as stress can cause you to engage in a range of unhealthy behaviours as you try to manage your stress. For example, you drink alcohol to excessive levels, you act out in anger, you eat too little or too much, you withdraw from your friends and family members as well as you smoke.

Of course, I cannot apply some of these signs to children, because SEN children will not be smoking, drinking alcohol or anything. Yet the young girl in our class does report feeling anxious, she shakes and she withdraws when she’s feeling stressed.

Finally for this section, it’s important for aspiring and qualified psychologists to be aware of the signs of stress because our own self-knowledge is very, very poor. This has been confirmed by multiple social psychology studies, so sometimes we might miss the signs that we are stressed. Yet we might be supporting a client who is telling us about these signs but they don’t realise they’re stressed. This knowledge allows us to gently point out “you might be stressed”.

How Can Diabetics Know If Stress Is Affecting Their Glucose Levels?

You might be working with a client who suspects their anxiety is impacting their glucose levels and they’re not sure, so they’re asking you. Personally, I would always refer them to ask their diabetes healthcare team if you are not already apart of it. The diabetic specialists will always be more knowledgeable and qualified to answer. Yet just for your own awareness and knowledge, this next section is going to be very useful.

If you or your client suspects their stress is impacting their glucose levels, you could get them to keep track of additional information of their stress. This includes the date, what they were doing and how intense the stress was, because this will help you both to understand what’s causing the stress. Then once you understand the cause, you can address it in therapy or in your own time. For example, you might be extra stressed on a Monday morning before you go to work and this suggests that you have work-related stress that needs to be dealt with.

If I apply this to the young girl in my class, she could write down that she is always stressed and anxious when she sees a particular boy, he tries to speak to her and she gets anxious the few minutes before lunchtime starts. This would allow us to identify what her difficulty is so we could start addressing it.

In addition, because people are keeping track of their glucose levels, the possible lifestyle factors that can contribute to stress and how their glucose levels respond, a person might notice that their glucose levels are regularly higher than their target range. This can cause them additional stress because they’re worried about diabetes-related complications and then the stress causes their glucose levels to rise. This becomes a vicious cycle.

On the whole, keeping track of stress, lifestyle factors that contribute to stress and your glucose levels helps you to understand patterns. Then you can work on how to address these difficulties with a professional.

How to Reduce Stress for Diabetic People?

Now that you’ve been monitoring your stress patterns and you’ve worked out a few factors that contribute to your stress and higher glucose levels, what are some ways to reduce stress?

Some ways to reduce your stress levels and hopefully decrease your glucose levels can include exercising regularly because this releases hormones into your bloodstream that make you feel good, so your stress levels and hormones decrease. I also found out tonight that my mum might be diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes so I was researching it and explaining it to her, and exercising regularly is a critical part of Type 2 Diabetes management.

Some other ways to reduce stress for diabetics is to spend time with loved ones, reduce your caffeine intake and avoid known stressors, like high-stress social situations. This helps you to self-regulate and decrease your stress response so the body isn’t pumping adrenaline and cortisol into your bloodstream. This should decrease your glucose levels as a result.

In addition, it’s useful to practice mindfulness techniques as well as take part in relaxing activities. This can be yoga, but it can be any activity that brings you joy and helps you to relax. It can include listening to music, going for a walk or playing with your dog.

Clinical Psychology Conclusion

At the end of this psychology podcast episode, I am really pleased that we’ve learnt how stress and anxiety impact diabetes, because this was a lot of fun for me. Not only because I can use this information in my job at the SEN school due to my changing role, but it is always great to see how psychological experiences can impact our physiology. This is why I find psychology so fascinating, interesting and just so much fun.

Just as a small recap at the end of the episode, stress and anxiety impact diabetes because whenever you’re feeling stressed or threatened (a factor that makes you feel anxious), your body reacts by activating your fight-or-flight response. When this happens, your body releases the stress hormones, cortisol as well as adrenaline into your blood and this causes your breathing rate to increase. In turn, this leads to increases in blood sugar levels.

Whether you or a loved one or friend are living with diabetes, or you’re an aspiring or qualified psychologist working with a client with diabetes, you now have the knowledge to understand how diabetes can cause anxiety and how anxiety and stress can impact diabetes management. This is critical knowledge to understand, because psychologists can be an important part of the puzzle when it comes to diabetes treatment.

Ultimately, this knowledge can help us support a client with diabetes so they can live a full, happy and productive life and most importantly, they can thrive.

I really hope you enjoyed today’s biology psychology podcast episode.

If you want to learn more, please check out:

FREE 8 PSYCHOLOGY BOOK BOXSET

Biological Psychology. Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca.

Patreon for exclusive access and rewards

Have a great day.

Biological Psychology References and Further Reading

Bombaci, B., Torre, A., Longo, A., Pecoraro, M., Papa, M., Sorrenti, L., ... & Salzano, G. (2024). Psychological and clinical challenges in the management of type 1 diabetes during adolescence: a narrative review. Children, 11(9), 1085.

Diabetes and mental health. (2024).https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/living-with/mental-health.html

Diabetes impacts the mental well-being of 3 in 4 people with the condition. (2024).https://idf.org/news/diabetes-hidden-burden/

Franquez, R. T., de Souza, I. M., & Bergamaschi, C. D. C. (2023). Interventions for depression and anxiety among people with diabetes mellitus: Review of systematic reviews. PLoS One, 18(2), e0281376.

Fraser, E. E., Ogden, K. J., Radford, A., Ingram, E. R., Campbell, J. E., Dennis, A., & Corbould, A. M. (2023). Exploring the psychological wellbeing of women with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM): increased risk of anxiety in women requiring insulin. A prospective longitudinal observational pilot study. Health psychology and behavioral medicine, 11(1), 2170378.

Harikrishnan S, et al. (2023). Role of lifestyle and stress on diabetes mellitus: A case-control study.https://biomedpharmajournal.org/vol16no2/role-of-lifestyle-and-stress-on-diabetes-mellitus-a-case-control-study/

https://www.healthline.com/health/diabetes-and-stress

I'm so stressed out! Fact sheet. (n.d.).https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/so-stressed-out-fact-sheet

Ingrosso DMF, et al. (2023). Stress and diabetes mellitus: Pathogenetic mechanisms and clinical outcome.https://karger.com/hrp/article/96/1/34/841550/Stress-and-Diabetes-Mellitus-Pathogenetic

Mersha, A. G., Tollosa, D. N., Bagade, T., & Eftekhari, P. (2022). A bidirectional relationship between diabetes mellitus and anxiety: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of psychosomatic research, 162, 110991.

Sharma K, et al. (2022). Stress-induced diabetes: A review.https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9561544/

I truly hope that you’ve enjoyed this blog post and if you feel like supporting the blog on an ongoing basis and get lots of rewards, then please head to my Patreon page.

However, if want to show one-time support and appreciation, the place to do that is PayPal. If you do that, please include your email address in the notes section, so I can say thank you.

Which I am going to say right now. Thank you!

Click  https://www.buymeacoffee.com/connorwhiteley for a one-time bit of support.