Managing Bipolar Disorder: Tips Needed

Learning your triggers is very helpful in avoiding manic/ depressive swings. Counseling is helpful as well as tracking your mood swings as mentioned earlier. Once you've learned to recognize your triggers, it becomes easier to cut off the swing before it takes over or avoid it all together. Money is a huge trigger for me, so I'm very careful with how I manage money including not having any credit cards. Too much of a temptation for me! Anything can be a trigger, but some common ones are seasonal triggers, anniversaries, holidays, trauma triggers and phobia triggers. If you know a trigger is coming or recognize it as it's happening, it can give you the power to use coping skills to avoid potential mood swings or reduce their intensity. I hope this is helpful.😁

I am currently questioning the same thing, my medications will work if I take them consistently . The best advice I can give to the both of us is take medicine for the condition and seek a therapist to communicate feelings and emotions .

Take your meds and if you don’t have any find a psychiatrist! If you feel yourself going into a manic episode, sleep it off. Like try to get as many hours of sleep as humanly possible. If you can’t sleep take sleep meds. There are some over the counter ones if melatonin is not enough. I have prescription ones. I also drink relaxing herbal tea, maybe watch a movie, or take a bath. Going in a walk can be good as well. Basically try to get your body and mind to slow down and try to relax yourself. No caffeine if you feel mania coming on. Also prepare several arguments against any of your manic tendencies before hand. For instance, mine thing is driving fast. I have several arguments against it ( crashing, getting a ticket, getting pulled over, hurting other people, etc) that I keep telling myself. It really helps if you tell yourself the same thing every time you get manic (and tell yourself it as many times as you need during each manic episode) the repetition helps it stick in your brain and reinforces it so it’s easier to stop doing stuff like that. You can also use this for things like having to eat (when I’m manic I’m not hungry and I get kind of nauseous so it’s difficult to eat). Keep trying to do that relaxing things even when you are manic and try to take care of yourself and your body (ie eat, sleep, etc) so that way when you come out of mania, you don’t feel like utter shit. As far as a depressive episode, spending time with friends, talking with a therapist, do something nice for yourself like take yourself shopping or go to the library. Dm me for other tips. I have a lot about what to do when you are depressed but I have to get going, so please feel free to message.

Same here. Track your manic symptoms day by day. Do your best to get as much sleep as possible. Hydrate yourself. And engage in as much self care as possible even when you can’t or don’t want to. Still get up and wash your face/brush your teeth. You’ll feel better tracking your symptoms and caring for yourself. I believe in you ❤️ I struggle deeply with bipolar disorder too