Do you have diabetes or know someone that does? If so, this blog is for you. Specifically speaking, Type II Diabetes or other behavior based diagnoses will benefit from this blog (or at least I hope you do). I write from the scientific perspective as well as personal and professional experiences. I include some fun GIPHYs to keep things light. I encourage you to share pieces of this blog to those you most care about. If you stay to the end you’ll hear about a program I’m really proud about.
#1 Essential: 💃 🏃♀️ 🤸♀️ 🧘♀️ 🙏 👩⚕️ Know What Depression Looks Like For Patients With Diabetes ⠀
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According to the Mayo Clinic, it is more likely for an individual that has Diabetes to also have depression. Also an individual with depression can increase the likelihood of having type 2 diabetes. ⠀
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It’s hard to say what it looks like specifically as it looks similar to average population with depression that do not also have diabetes. ⠀
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For more info read the article here. ⠀⠀
From my personal experience, my parents had two great friends that visited often and we visited them often as well. We called them Uncle Tim and Aunt Rebecca but they weren’t actually related. Do you have any friends like that? Imagine those people in your life that have helped shape you into the being you are dealing with diabetes…
Rebecca told me when I was finally an ‘adult’ that they hadn’t been managing their diabetes and weight for over 19 years since they learned they were diagnosed. She made a decision to lose weight over the course of a year so she could have open heart surgery. She lost over 100 lbs by walking and paying attention to her diet. She looked healthier and actually had the surgery successfully. The diabetes had been uncontrolled for so long though that she passed away 8 months after helping us deal with my father’s death and funeral arrangements.
It made me so angry at the world and angry that someone I cared so much for couldn’t be saved. She cared for everyone and volunteered everywhere for anyone. She’d mail birthday cards and all kinds of cards for all kinds of occasions to remind me that I mattered and she was thinking of me. No matter how much she cared for me and for those she connected to, it didn’t matter. She didn’t care enough about her own health and died before she turned 60. Tim is still alive and doing okay, but I know he misses her. My mom drove her to her first date with Tim. Tim was friends with my dad in kindergarten at the church. I’m pissed she’s gone and that I couldn’t save her. Only she could have saved herself and she chose to focus 19 years on giving love to others first and meeting other people’s needs first. If this story sounds like you, maybe this is your gentle wake up call to make a shift in your health and put YOU as priority for your family’s sake and for your own life’s sake.
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I’d love your ideas, comments, insights from what depression looks like for people with diabetes. If you could take a screen shot of the blog title and tweet me your thoughts to @MoveHappyTeam I’d appreciate it!
#2 Essential: 💃 🏃♀️ 🤸♀️ 🧘♀️ 🙏 👩⚕️ Know what the signs and symptoms of depression in patients with diabetes are ⠀
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It may look like an inability to perform tasks, communicate and think clearly which can negatively impact diabetes treatment adherence (aka following medical recommendations for diabetes). ⠀
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Some call type 2 diabetes the precursor to Alzheimer’s because of the connection to the brain and the damage it can cause to thinking, emotional balance, vision, and more. ⠀
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My dad was diagnosed WAY late in life and probably had it for years without us knowing for sure. He struggled remembering things and was always falling asleep when we’d watch a movie or something. He worked 12-16 hour days and only had Wednesdays and Sundays off from the time I was 11- his death in 2016.
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He rarely knew any of my friends names though I knew he cared about knowing them. I think he just struggled with his health from the get go of smoking for a couple decades, kidney cancer and living on 1 kidney for 19 years, and a work environment of nights/grocery store with access to donuts and junk food and a lack of self awareness.⠀
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When he got his knees replaced he started eating healthier and had joined a fitness class every day. I saw his mood boost and his levels were improving. Unfortunately it wasn’t a permanent change and the years of unhealthy habits had gotten the best of him. ⠀
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It’s not too late for you if you’re diabetic to improve your health. Sure it’ll be challenging, but I truly believe it is possible to improve your health because of all the people I’ve seen and worked with professionally.⠀
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It takes YOU to believe that it’s possible for you and consistency.⠀
One thing I’d recommend NOT doing is going from zero minutes of exercise in your life to 60 minutes a day of intense vigorous exercise. Start slow and hire a fitness coach if you need one to help you gradually increase your minutes and intensity. The ACSM has a great manual with specific recommendations for fitness instructors to use as guidance. General rule of thumb is 30 minutes a day 5 days a week until you can add more and then 60 minutes a day 5 days a week is recommended after a while. If you’re curious about making sure to gradually add exercise in healthy ways, I’d hire a fitness coach, reach out to your local gym for guidance and ask yourself what your end goal is. From there work backwards to get to today’s activity.
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I’d love your additional insights individuals with diabetes and/or if you have family or friends that have diabetes and depression.⠀If you could tweet a screen shot of this blog post and write a few sentences of your ideas that this blog has brought to mind, I’d appreciate it! I’ll retweet the ones I feel are really resonant to helping empower people to move towards their own happiness through practical tips/strategies, science proof and fun 🙌
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#3 Essential: 💃 🏃♀️ 🤸♀️ 🧘♀️ 🙏 👩⚕️ Know What is The Global Prevalence of Diabetes Worldwide⠀
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Harvard says the global cost of diabetes is $825 billion dollars annually 😳. If we can help even 1 percent of that through supporting their underlying issues with mental illness we’d help save the world $8.25B annually. ⠀
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Won’t you please join me in this effort to make a global impact in a positive manner? According to the National Institute of Health, The prevalence of depressive disorders in diabetics is the general range of 10% to 15%, which is approximately twice as high as the prevalence of depression in nondiabetics. ⠀
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Comorbidity significantly worsens the prognosis of both diseases and increases their mortality. See the article below for more specifics ⠀
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I remember when my dad had cancer the first time, I was 11yrs old. It was kidney cancer and the treatment back then was to kill the kidney with 99% alcohol. It was a very painful procedure my dad had to go through and so frustrating that nowadays they don’t do that procedure anymore. ⠀
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Having 1 kidney made his filtration system for all the junk in his body even less effective. Couple that with a stressful job working nights and surrounded by donuts and treats in grocery stores made it even more challenging for him to stay healthy. ⠀
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He was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes when I worked at JBLM as a health educator. I remember talking to Lynne about his A1C levels and how his doctor said he was ‘prediabetic’ even though the levels were consistently in the diabetec range grrr⠀
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Maybe he would have lived longer had he had 2 kidneys, we’ll never know. Since I can’t get my father back, I’d love to inspire you through the drastic stories to help “kick you in the butt” to making positive changes to your lifestyle should this style be what you need to take action. Maybe you’re not needing it but your friend or family member does. No matter what, I am doing my part and taking action the best way I know how to help people with depression from all kinds of perspectives because it’s what I needed for me. It wasn’t available for me and I know there are plenty of others that need it but are afraid to speak up. Rebecca spoke up very loudly and boldly enough times in my upbringing to encourage me to be a little firehose of good news (and slightly irritating to some 😂). No one can ever say they didn’t know my stance on something #OpinionatedAboutWellness⠀
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I’d love your stories and insights specific to diabetes and depression below so we can support one another. Please take a screen shot of the title of this blog and this essential # and write a post on Facebook and tag me @TheRealMoveHappy. I’ll share your post if it is in alignment with “Mindset” “Community” and “Fitness” tied into this week’s topic of diabetes and depression ❤️. It’s not an easy task to connect a variety of topics into cohesive application so I’m excited for the few that are up to the task.
Move Happy Updates
The Move Happy Movement Podcast© is in full swing! Together we are bringing awareness to mental health, providing practical strategies to empower those with depressed states to move towards their own happiness and inspiring the joy of movement! Tomorrow I’ll be releasing episode 41 with Nir Eyal, Wall Street Journal’s Best Selling Author, Angel Investor for EventBrite and Harvard Business Professor. He messaged me directly saying he saw my comment on someone else’s post on LinkedIn and wanted to connect with me further. Talk about wow! He’s got over 255,000 followers on his LinkedIn channel and HE reached out to ME! #Humbled
When I told my bro he reached out to me, he said “I know him. I have his audio book.” That gave him instant credibility in my book because I trust my brother’s opinion and then I started doing research on him and what he is passionate about. He is a highly intellectual person and can teach on any topic he puts his mind to but what he’s most passionate about is learning how to stay focused to get things done and get ahead. ⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️
Fun fact he also might be speaking/training at the Move Happy World Tour Experience 1.0 October 9th-10th. This is my first charity give back to mental health and will be an annual thing. I am a for-profit business but am growing my brand. I am associating my brand with those making global impact for mental health by paying for research to be done on a holistic level. Nir might be open to training though his schedule is very busy.
Do him and myself a favor and Tweet me (@MoveHappyTeam & @NirEyal) a screenshot of this blog and say that YOU want him to teach/train at the event this year or a future year. The more people that get his attention and mine on a public platform helps me organize an event that YOU want to attend ❤️. The kinds of people we’re hoping to teach/train are medical practitioners to improve patient treatment over all in the world. Pretty cool right?
Other fun updates in my life, I’m hiring 2 peeps starting this coming week to help with media. Emma will be head of creative and is doing it part-time because that’s what my budget allows to start. She would LOVE to be full time social media management for a couple other people as well. I’d love to send business her way so she enjoys working with me. Do me a favor and DM her on LinkedIn if you’re looking and tell her I sent you so she knows I’m not just hiring part-time but really do appreciate the value she brings to my team.
My other person I’m hiring has been following my content for 2 years and is 17 now. Mom approved and Alex will be starting Tuesday. Alex prefers to be identified as they/them/their. We’re going to be going over all things training Monday so the team knows what’s up and I will have a little less direct work on posting of content myself. I’ll still be handling DM’ing but if it’s a post they post on behalf of Move Happy brand, they will be answering their own comments 20mins after posting and any stragglers that comment, they’ll make sure to comment back the following business day.
I’ll be overseeing the content and still doing my videos but other pieces of my marketing will be done and handled by Emma and Alex. You’ll see their email for communication next weekend. Keep in mind Emma is part-time and Alex is a senior in high school. Their bandwidth for questions is limited so please unless you’re wanting to send me capital, don’t ask them questions you can google 😂😂😂. Also, because these are my tribe, any inappropriate DMs sent to them that I hear about will be handled in an immediate BLOCK to your channel on my main feed. I will not ask any questions or have any warnings. Alex’s mom is very cautious as it is and I want this to be a good experience for Alex. Inappropriate DMs might look something like, “hey baby” or “hey beautiful love your post” and you’re a old man/woman looking for attention and not really interested in building the brand. Use this general rule of thumb, if you could not say these things in front of your great grandma or your pastor/spiritual leader, it probably is not something you should send a private message to my team about. Any questions for clarification can be emailed to me directly. Keep in mind I respond to emails not related to sponsorship for the charity event last (1-2 week response).
Other news, I have been doing my own social media management while maintaining a full time job since 2016. I didn’t launch Move Happy officially until I moved to TN in 2017 however I have been practicing social media since 2015 and forgot how much I learned in such a short amount of time. When I created my Move Happy Instagram channel @TheRealMoveHappy summer of 2018 I grew really fast in a short amount of time. Facebook reached out to me within 4 months of launching my profile (they own Instagram). They asked if I was interested in speaking on stage and helping other small businesses grow their brands on stage. The kinds of questions the nice lady asked me on the recorded line were very much “insider” questions. I quickly started realizing she was trying to get info on my “system” and “how do you write your own content, do you hire someone or do it yourself?” I didn’t know I was adding value just by being myself and using my curriculum design skills I learned by being a K-12 teacher without a curriculum ever haha😂. Even though I hadn’t made that much money yet with Move Happy, I was so open with what I was doing she gave me a private portal link for support from Facebook staff directly that most others don’t get access to. She encouraged me to use it anytime I didn’t have time to sort through their ‘resources’ pages. #Grateful
I did some serious thinking after that call and asked myself, “Why Can’t I teach social media skills that I learned?” I couldn’t answer the question so I launched Erin Nicole Media last summer. I didn’t take it seriously and had my first guest trainee completely shocked that she was my first client. Blanca was on the Steve Harvey Show and Mel Robbins Show. She’s been on every news outlet in the world and top 30 body language expert in the world!
Blanca was SO surprised at the skillset I had (at the end of the Social Media University Intensive workshop I told her she was my first haha) she thanked me for offering it for free for her. Of course it gave me the confidence to modify the workshop and really take it seriously as a second business. Now I am offering the workshop multiple times a day as I am done working for other people in corporate America. If you’re interested in taking my workshop, email me subject line “SMUI Workshop Blog Discount Interest” including days/times and your respective timezone for ease of organizing here. Once I receive enough interest (max of 8) I’ll set up the next workshop. If you bring 3 friends, you’ll get a free ticket for yourself too. I’m not perfect, but I’ve learned a lot of mistakes and I learned that I’m actually pretty good at it and am good at teaching. I want to help you grow your brand too. Did I mention I didn’t have a good smart phone until 2015? 😊 #YouCanLearnToo
One last thing, I offer the workshop as a group setting because that’s how I prefer to teach. If you’re dying to take it but don’t want anyone else around, you may schedule your exclusive 1:1 VIP training with me for $999 and receive 1 year access after that to the group workshop. To sign up for 1:1 VIP go here. Shoot me an email confirming purchase and I’ll do my best to accommodate your schedule and block off time on my calendar since you’re paying more for my time. Also, I reserve the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason.
#4 Essential: 💃 🏃♀️ 🤸♀️ 🧘♀️ 🙏 👩⚕️ Know what causes depression in patients with diabetes. Know also what are some practical strategies to help empower them to move towards their own happiness.
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What causes diabetes and depression in patients is a mystery. ⠀
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There are some studies out there but the bottom line is that it is heavily connected to our glucose levels and insulin levels. ⠀
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If we’re not keeping a healthy balanced diet with a variety of fruits and veggies, balancing our stress, getting proper rest, etc etc, we all are susceptible.⠀
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I’d love to hear your advice that is scientifically based or experience based w/people who have diabetes and depression. Please tweet me your empirical evidence and professional opinions to @MoveHappyTeam. I’ll retweet your thoughts and give you writer’s credit. ⠀
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#5 Essential: 💃 🏃♀️ 🤸♀️ 🧘♀️ 🙏 👩⚕️ Know How Move Happy Can help patients with diabetes & depression.⠀
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If you’re a patient with diabetes & depression or work with patients with diabetes that also have depression, I’d love to give you a gift. ⠀
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You can either download 1 free copy or purchase 1 copy for yourself. Any more than that please email me for permission first (erin@themovehappy. com) as this is my business and it’s copyrighted). I’ve spent over $5k on a poverty level income in the last few years and poured hours and hours into this business because I believe in the mission of empowering people globally to find their own happiness and walk away from depression. I’d never steal from anyone and I know you won’t do that from me either. If you need massive copies because you’re also in a low income area and have a great opportunity to teach youth with my journal for example, just shoot me an email first, get my permission, then we’re square. The only reason why I’d say no would be if you’re a big business and you’re using it to profit from instead of benefit the world. Make sense? Good. No? Email me for clarification ❤️.⠀
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I designed this journal for adult patients in a live in psychiatric hospital that helped me through the tough time of losing my father. ⠀
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We journaled together on topics related to happiness and had 5-10 minute group discussions then we worked out together. ⠀
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I had access to my patients BMI, glucose levels and more on a monthly basis. I am not an expert in looking at these numbers to determine diabetes, however A1C levels are good indicators of an individual with diabetes. ⠀
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I learned about A1C levels when I worked at JBLM as a health educator for the US Army and US Air Force Active Duty, their spouses, and Retired Veterans under the direction of Dr. Bruder, RN and her 2nd in command, Lynn Larson, RN.⠀
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Almost all the patients when I later worked at the psychiatric hospital that were obese (85-95% of the patients) also had diabetes indicators. 😩. They really enjoyed the journal and I know you will too. Think of this as an addition to your current treatment plan 😊 not in replacement of.⠀
In order to receive the free copy you sign up for my email list. The rest of the emails are geared more towards mental health practitioners so if they don’t apply to you, feel free to unsubscribe. ⠀
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Unless you might be interested in future topics like: Move Happy Family® and Move Happy Youth® then keep yo self included 😉 ⠀
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So there you have it folks. Diabetes and depression are very interrelated. We can do things to help improve our health. It is not just an individuals problem but a very expensive global problem $825Billion annually. A lot of what cost factors are is not often discussed in a large way that is simplified to the public. I am doing my part to take confusing medical info, connect that said medical info that’s related to people with depression in a specified industry and make it as simple as possible for those that might be interested in that weekly topic. I’m no expert, I’ve just learned how to be empathic to those with medical problems and mental illness because I treat others the way I want to be treated. I lost my father my 3rd day on the job while working in a psychiatric hospital. My patients and staff were the nicest people I ever met. I chose to be open and vulnerable with them. They went above and beyond to show me kindness and compassion and that is why I created my Move Happy Program and why I continue to work on it every single day. They encouraged me so often to share it with other hospitals it became an inside joke with the staff, “gee Erin we can’t wait to get our Move Happy Swag.” and things like that. I thought they were just being nice, but enough people kept saying the same thing, I owed it to them to share it with you.
If you found any value in this blog, I’d be honored if you’d share it with your social media and family/friends that you care most about.
PS: Don’t forget to tell someone you love them today
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