Mindfulness and Diabetes

Tuesday at lunch some of my friends snagged me to go to some free program they were having at Mercer called "tea time and meditation". While it turned out that spending 10 minutes analyzing raisins to better our mindfulness was a little bit comical, it did get me thinking about how mindfulness really is important to the quality of how you live your life. I don't know about you, but I myself have been very bad about mindfulness for a very, very long time. College was a literal blur and so was high school. I am proud of where I am at, but when I look back on my life for years and years I see one long string of goings-on and going-to's, of this, that and the other. Of rushing. Of worrying about the next thing. Each moment was an opportunity to prepare for another. Study and do hw on all of my breaks so I can work. Scarf down my food in 5 minutes to make my schedule fit from class to class. Rush from school to gymnastics, answer clients' emails on my free time while chatting with friends, and on, and on, and on. I am the literal queen of multitasking. It's wonderful and awful at the same time. Have I changed? It's hard to say.

But I think some of the best progress that I've made in truly learning to be mindful started when I began dating Kris. Kris is very anti-stress for me. He can calm me down in any situation, talk us through it, and lead us through prayer. He's really just wonderful at comforting me in general. But more than that, I feel like my relationship is different in that I want to be mindful with him. It means a lot of things. I want to focus on and enjoy every minute I have with him. And more than that even, I respect him. I respect him and by extension I want to give him all of my attention. This doesn't mean I can't work on homework or study or practice on him and thus give up spending quality time together. In fact, more than not I'm always doing one of those three things when we're together, because that's just the nature of school. A lot of it means being conscientious. It means listening when he speaks - truly listening, not just hearing. It means contributing to our conversation. It means being excited to tell him about my day and to hear about his. It means respecting his point of view, and embracing his opinions. Importantly for me also, it means putting down my phone and focusing less on social media. I think as I get older and I keep growing more, I realize that using my time to participate in useless Debates is not the best use of my time when I could be doing something meaningful. That my life exists outside of a screen - most importantly, it exists all around me, and if I spend too much time staring at a screen, that I'll miss a lot of important things.
By extension, this mindfulness - or striving to be - has helped with my Diabetes a lot. The whole dating with Diabetes is a blog post for another time, but while I'm not perfect still - I've been under a lot less stress. Stress increases your blood sugar, it's no secret. But by taking time to relax, enjoy my time, and let myself be calm - to try and take time for me not because I necessarily have more time, but making an effort to make the time I do have quality time - it helps me to focus on my numbers and has even helped my sugars become easier to manage.

This is definitely a work in progress for me, But, I think it is important, Diabetes or no, to embrace the things that are positive in your life and not take them for granted. To be mindful about them and take time to enjoy these things. Taking time out and really focusing on making your moments good ones might be one of the most healthy things you can do for yourself.