Proactive diabetes management is fundamental to living your best life. While we cannot “control” diabetes we can make decisions and take consistent action to better manage our diabetes. By consistently taking an active role in our diabetes care and management, over time, we improve our probability for a longer, healthier life filled with experiencing the things we want and enjoy.
What Proactive Diabetes Management Looks Like
Proactive diabetes management can take different forms. It can happen in the moment or in advance of an event.
Being proactive is a behavior trait that involves anticipating a situation, planning how to respond, and then following through with that action.
We can be proactive by developing daily habits like checking glucose levels before every meal and then responding by making adjustments to what we eat or our insulin dose.
Proactivity can also be found in how we think out and prepare in advance our response to unusual circumstances. For example, carrying a glucometer and glucose tabs with us every day along with learning how to treat hypoglycemia (an extremely low blood glucose reading).
The essential benefit of being proactive is that it supports consistency in the actions we take and, by extension, improves our long term diabetes management.
Other benefits that result from being proactive include experiencing less stress and anxiety in the moment along with improving our probability of experiencing a higher quality of life over the long term.
What Proactive Diabetes Management Doesn’t Look Like
Being proactive doesn’t create perfection. It doesn’t guarantee that we “get it right” all the time. But it helps with getting it right more consistently.
Trying to be perfect in our diabetes management can create problems of its own. Perfectionism can lead to obsessive and compulsive behaviors. These are the kinds of behaviors that move us away from making conscious decisions. They can trigger responses based on what is perceived instead of what is actually happening.
Being proactive also doesn’t mean going it alone. No one person can know everything about how to effectively manage diabetes in every situation. Everyone needs some help and support at least some of the time.
Whether connecting with a person or a resource, help and support can take many forms. It can be a peer with been-there-done-that experience offering words of encouragement. Or it can take the form of a brainstorming session with a diabetes educator on how to respond in a particular situation, like holiday meals or working grave shift. And it can include discussing alternatives to current prescriptions with your doctor.
Reaching out for help and information reflects how resourceful and resilient we are. It’s not a sign of weakness or failure.
Living Your Best Life with Diabetes
Living your best life will mean different things to each of us. Certainly diabetes will influence what we strive for. However, by anticipating, planning, and then following through we empower ourselves to move towards having a healthier life filled with the experiences we want and enjoy.
About Corinna Santa Ana:
Corinna Santa Ana is a content writer and diabetes advocate. Her aim is to help people make better informed decisions about their health and healthcare. As a Latina diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in 2009, she understands first-hand the many challenges life with diabetes presents. You can find her thoughts and musings about life with T2D on Twitter @type2musings.