I can’t be the only one who feels that it takes five-ever (which is even longer than FORever) for high blood sugar to come back down to normal levels.

I don’t use any super-fast-acting insulin (such as Afrezza or Fiasp), so typically, I have to wait about an hour for my good ole Humalog to kick in. And an hour can feel agonizingly long when it comes to diabetes.

Fortunately, I’ve used different tips and tricks over the years to help make that hour fly by:

• Blast some music and dance around in place. You might feel dorky when doing this, but I honestly swear by it – not only is it fun, but it can also help my blood sugar come down faster because yes, dancing around is still exercise!
• Sip water over the course of the hour. I challenge myself to drink at least one full water bottle (I’m talking my 25 ounce reusable water bottle, here) in this hour of time. It’s my opportunity to rehydrate myself, and it’s also a good way to flush out the system when trying to bring a high blood sugar back down.
• Watch episodes of “comfort” television. I know that I can watch exactly one episode of The Boys, two episodes of Sex and the City, or three episodes of Community (yes my taste in TV is eclectic) and allow myself to get totally immersed in the shows as opposed to stressing about my blood sugar. I call these shows “comfort” TV because I’ve seen all the episodes before, but I enjoy them still and I know how much of them I need to watch in order to stay distracted.
• Read a magazine or a few book chapters. I’m kind of a hoarder and I save old magazines that I’ve purchased at airports over the years…but my magazine stash comes in handy when I need an hour of time to go by faster because I can pretty much read one cover to cover (depending on how big it is, of course) while I wait for my blood sugar to come down. Or I can turn to my book collection, select a piece of “comfort” literature (like the comfort TV described above), and get lost in the words for awhile.

• Get into an arts and crafts project (or anything that requires focus). For me, this is knitting. Depending on the knitting project, it can take anywhere from a day to weeks to complete something. So if I need to wait for a high to come back down, I can focus on making knitting progress as opposed to what my blood sugar’s doing for an hour – and honestly, I sometimes get so into my work that I don’t stop for a few hours. Time goes by quickly when knitting!
• Make it impossible to keep checking the CGM app. Sure, I could torture myself by checking my app literally every 5 minutes for updates, but that’s one guaranteed way to drive myself crazy for a full hour (or longer, because there’s a 15-minute delay with my CGM). So I force myself not to check it by putting my phone in a different room, silencing it, or turning it off altogether. Removing the temptation to check my blood sugar is majorly helpful when waiting for it to drop down because I’m not constantly stressing over how long it’s taking for the insulin to start working.

It might seem kind of ridiculous that I rely on these strategies to make time go by faster when I have a high blood sugar, but they work – and feel a heck of a lot better to do than anxiously staring at my CGM for a full hour!