Managing Stress and Emotional Well-Being Learning to live with diabetes is not easy. Managing diabetes often means making changes in eating and physical activity habits, taking medications, and dealing with the emotions that come with having a chronic disease. When people with diabetes have difficulty coping with stress and emotions, they might stop managing their condition or use unhealthy behaviors to cope. People with diabetes and their loved ones can learn healthy ways to cope with the roller coaster of emotions and stress that living with the illness may cause.

What You Can Do: Use the Managing Stress and Emotional Well-Being presentation and the supporting materials to help

your employees learn how to best manage their diabetes. This is one of an eight-lesson series that provides up-to-date diabetes information and tools for your employees. Offer Understanding Diabetes first; the remaining seven presentations can be offered in any order. All eight diabetes management lesson plans and supporting PowerPoint slides can be found on Diabetes at Work under Quick Links/Lesson Plans.

Three lesson plans about diabetes prevention can also be found under Quick Links/Lesson Plans. Plan now to offer all eight management and three diabetes prevention lessons to your employees.

Review this presentation guide and the associated PowerPoint presentation, and gather the handouts a few days before the session.

Encourage your employees with diabetes to ask their health care provider for a referral to a diabetes self-management education program, such as an American Diabetes Association Recognized Education Program or a program accredited by the American Association of Diabetes Educators.

Share additional Diabetes at Work resources with your employe

PRESENTATION OBJECTIVES:

Employees will learn about

The relationship between diabetes, stress, and emotional well-being. Healthy emotional coping strategies as an important part of managing

diabetes. How to manage stress so that it does not cause additional health problems.

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PRESENTATION OUTLINE: The PowerPoint slides follow this outline.

I. Discussion Topics A. Coping with emotions B. Managing stress

II. Coping With Emotions A. Common emotions B. Challenges C. Coping with emotions D. Healthy coping strategies E. Ideas for healthy coping F. Healthy coping strategy examples G. Depression H. Signs of depression

III. Managing Stress A. Healthy stress management B. What you can do

IV. Control Your Diabetes Every Day V. Learning About Diabetes

TIME REQUIRED: 30 minutes

AUDIO VISUAL PowerPoint presentation, laptop/projector

HANDOUTS: Healthy Coping Strategies Worksheet

ACTIVITY: Healthy Coping Strategies Worksheet. This worksheet will help participants think through what causes them to be upset when trying to manage diabetes and healthy coping strategies they might use to feel better.

Stressful Situation Activity 1 and Stressful Situation Activity 2. The facilitator reads each hypothetical situation to participants and leads a discussion to generate suggestions on how to better handle each stressful situation.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Find additional information and resources at

National Diabetes Education Program Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Diabetes at Work: What’s Depression Got to Do with It? A free CE course

designed for employers to help them address diabetes and depression at work. American Diabetes Association: Living Well with

Diabetes/Complications/Mental Health National Institute of Mental Health: Depression and Diabetes 1-800-CDC-INFO (1-800-232-4636)