Key Takeaways
Mental health and chronic diseases are closely intertwined and can have a big impact on a person’s physical and mental health.
Studies show that people suffering from chronic diseases have a higher risk of developing mental health conditions like anxiety, depression, substance abuse, and more.
Including mental health support in treating chronic diseases can enhance the patient’s overall well-being.
Chronic diseases are responsible for 74% of all deaths worldwide. Chronic diseases or noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) are health conditions that go on for a long time, like cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, Alzheimer’s disease, and more.
These illnesses, aside from having physical repercussions, can affect your mental health negatively too, and thus, you need to understand the relationship between mental health and chronic disease.
Connection Between Mental Health and Chronic Diseases
The relationship between mental health conditions and chronic diseases is not an easy one. After different studies, it has been found that they are closely related and can influence each other. Kati Morton, LMFT, a licensed marriage and family therapist, says:
“Chronic illness can lead to a slew of different mental health issues.”
Research has found that people who suffer from depression have a higher chance of heart failure.
So, how do they start? Well, it can start with the patients suffering from chronic diseases like diabetes, cancer, or a heart condition, feeling different from others around them. They may start to feel lonely, which can cause negative feelings about the world or any particular topic, making them feel stressed, depressed, or anxious.
To combat these sad or depressive feelings, the patients can even form eating disorders, substance abuse disorder (SUD), and even self-harm, which can impact a person’s physical health too.
Psychological Impact of Chronic Disease
Just like chronic diseases can impact your mental health, mental conditions can affect chronic diseases, too. Like if you have clinical depression or anxiety disorder, you may make some unhealthy lifestyle choices that can increase your chances of developing a chronic disease.
Following, Dr. Chris Mosunic, a licensed clinical psychologist and chief clinical officer of ‘Calm,’ a mental health app, explains this process:
“If you’re depressed, anxious, or stressed and it’s not going to be treated, then you’re going to develop unhealthy habits. So, your blood sugars will go up, and your mood will continue to go down over time. Unfortunately, these develop into physical chronic conditions, most prevalently obesity and diabetes as well as hypertension.”
If you think that your chronic disease is now affecting your mental health, then you can fill out a questionnaire for the same. This will assess your mental health with chronic disease(s) that will help the medical professional understand your situation and change or upgrade your treatment accordingly.
Ways To Tackle Mental Health With Chronic Diseases
To bridge the gap between mental health and chronic disease, the government needs to introduce health policies that can look over both the mental and physical health of the patient at the same time to see if they are not developing any condition because of their current condition.
But, until then, fortunately, some effective ways of self-care can help you cope. Some of these ways include:
1. Seek Therapy
There are different types of therapies that your doctor can recommend after looking at your connection so that you either do not develop any additional mental or physical health conditions or even decrease the impact of the condition if you are already suffering through it.
Whether it be talk therapy, psychoeducation, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), or any other similar practice, these ways have been found among the most useful ones to manage chronic diseases alongside mental health conditions.
Dr.Mosunic praises the use of CBT, saying:
“If a person is dealing with depression or anxiety, we know that cognitive behavioral therapy is right for clinical diagnosis like depression and anxiety. It’s the fastest way to help a person quickly and break them out of the cycle.”
2. Join a Support Group
In a support group, you communicate with people who have similar conditions. This can serve as a way to develop a bond. Going to meetings can make you feel less lonely and reduce or finish the thoughts of feeling different from others.
From getting advice to useful recommendations, joining a support group can be quite beneficial!
3. Make Healthy Lifestyle Changes
Since the intervention of mental health conditions with chronic illnesses can lead to feeling sad, grief, substance abuse, and even thoughts of suicide, doctors highly recommend following healthy practices daily.
Healthy lifestyle interventions like getting proper sleep, eating a balanced diet, and exercising fill your time with positive or mindfulness activities that help in living healthily, too.
4. Address Sources of Mental Health Condition
Whether it be stress, anxiety, or depression that comes because of the chronic disease, once you and your therapist or any other medical professional have found out the situations that are causing it, then you should start addressing it with the coping strategies that work for you.
Once you have identified your coping mechanisms, you should use them whenever you are not feeling fine.
5. Track Routine
Tracking your daily routine, whether it is by using a planner or tracker online or jogging down your feelings, can help you address any additional condition as soon as possible, which can, in turn, help you in your treatment.
Mental health apps like uMore help in different ways. You can track your health and also keep your emotional well-being strong with easy exercises trusted by experts in the field.
Conclusion
Though there are some ways to combat mental health conditions arising from chronic diseases and vice versa, there is still a stigma in that society that needs to be addressed to make people understand its importance. Until then, if you know the ways to cope with your mental health and chronic diseases, then you can take hold of your condition!
