Elevated levels of blood sugar or diabetes can cause many health problems, and if left untreated, they can affect the major organs of the body – heart, kidney, liver – which can even be fatal. Dr Harish Kumar, Clinical Professor and Head, Center for Endocrinology and Diabetes, Amrita Hospital, Kochi shared, “The first thing to remember about controlling diabetes is that you must maintain your lifestyle properly. Therefore, a healthy lifestyle is a must. Now, a healthy lifestyle consists of three components – the first component is diet, the second is exercise and the third is stress management.
Manage Your Diabetes: Control 3 Aspects of Life
Dr Kumar explains how these three aspects of lifestyle can be controlled to control diabetes
modify your diet
1) A relatively low-calorie diet prescribed by your doctor or dietician is recommended for diabetes.
2) Make sure you have more fruits and vegetables in your diet. There are some fruits that you can safely consume if you have diabetes. Some others should not be eaten by diabetic patients, as they can shoot up the blood sugar uP. Click here to see a list of 7 low glycemic index fruits that diabetics can eat.
exercise regularly
1) Apart from taking care of diet, another very important component in keeping your blood sugar under control is regular exercise.
2) It is generally recommended that you do 40-45 minutes of vigorous aerobic exercise – daily if possible, or at least five times a week. Now, aerobic exercise means that it would be jogging, brisk walking, swimming and playing sports like shuttlecock, tennis and basketball.
3) For old age patients, just brisk walking for 40-45 minutes will serve the purpose.
4) If you don’t have time or you don’t have time for a brisk walk for 40-45 minutes at a stretch, people – especially busy people in office – should ensure a casual walk of 10-12 minutes after each meal needed. , Recent evidence has shown that it also lowers blood sugar overall.
manage your stress
People may not pay much attention to it, but controlling stress is an important component of lifestyle management because whenever you are stressed, your blood sugar and blood pressure tend to rise. That’s why learning to deal with stress is so important. It is not possible to eliminate stress from our lives, but we can learn how to manage stress. The techniques of yoga and meditation will really help us to reduce the stress level in our reactions to various life situations.