By Barbara Sadick
Medically Reviewed by Bhargavi Patham, MD, PhD
Getting exercise regularly can help you boost energy and maintain a healthy body weight — both important for improving your diabetes symptoms.Getty Images
No, it's not your imagination: Taking care of yourself when you have type 2 diabetes can be exhausting. Diabetes-related fatigue is common, and you may be feeling it from a variety of sources — your type 2 diabetes symptoms themselves, exhaustion from the responsibilities of managing diabetes daily, ineffective diabetes management, or even from other underlying conditions.
Understanding Diabetes-Related Fatigue
There are strong associations between diabetes and testosterone levels, kidney disease, and other health complications, all of which can cause you to become very tired, says Ronald Tamler, MD, medical director of the Mount Sinai Clinical Diabetes Institute at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. There’s also a link between diabetes and depression, he adds, and depression is a common cause of extreme fatigue.
According to a study published in June 2014 in the journal Current Diabetes Report, depressive symptoms affect up to one-third of people with diabetes. The research also found that depression not only impairs quality of life but also adds to the difficulties experienced in diabetes self-management.
"The research highlights a wide range of potential explanations for the association between diabetes and depression, which include having a sedentary lifestyle, eating a diet high in refined sugars, sleeping poorly, and experiencing brain dysfunction due to low and high blood sugars, as well as chronic inflammation that is associated with diabetes," says David Lam, MD, associate director of the Mount Sinai Diabetes Center at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City.
Other causes of fatigue from diabetes include cells being deprived of sugar, high blood sugar, dehydration from increased urination, loss of calories, and sleep apnea. Graham McMahon, bachelor of medicine and bachelor of surgery, the president and CEO of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education and an adjunct professor of medical education at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, says that high blood pressure, nerve damage, and other underlying physical conditions can be a direct cause of exhaustion.
Pinpointing a Cause of Fatigue
“Don’t take fatigue for granted,” Dr. McMahon says. “It needs to be investigated.” Some people may need to undergo a sleep study for possible sleep apnea, while others should be tested for anemia, and still others may need to be treated for stress and depression.
Reasons you may be tired from diabetes can be more subtle than you might think. If you’re not getting the energy you need from food, or you’re skipping meals, you’ll be tired. If you’re overweight, you may be at risk for sleep apnea, a serious condition in which breathing problems cause poor-quality sleep that can in turn deplete your energy. These problems can also make diabetes symptoms worse.
Being tired from diabetes is a serious barrier to being active, taking good care of oneself, and properly using medication to stabilize your blood sugar levels. The good news, though, is that a lack of energy doesn’t have to be a permanent way of life.
Boosting Energy
Following these tips to help boost energy may go a long way toward improving your diabetes symptoms and your quality of life:
Be sure to see your doctor regularly.
Eat a healthy, nutritious diet and don’t skip meals.
Move more. Exercise boosts energy and helps you lose extra weight or maintain a healthy weight.
Keep blood sugar levels in control.
Sleep is critical, so get seven to eight hours a night and never less than six hours.
If you’re depressed, get treatment.
If you’re stressed, ask your doctor for ways to manage it.
If you think you may have sleep apnea or other sleep problems, seek treatment.
Adjusting to a Healthier Lifestyle
Because of the great amount of management it takes to live a healthy life with type 2 diabetes symptoms, you’re likely to experience a lack of energy at times. The more complex the diabetes, the more you’ll need to do to keep your blood sugar levels in normal range. And the more work it takes to control blood sugar levels, the more tired you’ll likely become.
But as you continue to become more educated about diabetes — with as much support as you can get from family and friends — you’ll begin to adjust to eating better, exercising more, sleeping better, and keeping your blood sugar levels in check. Once you’ve made the choice to be healthier, you’ll find yourself less fatigued and more energized.
