One of the biggest messages you need to take from this e-book is the fact that you can improve your condition if you make some changes in your lifestyle. You can learn to cope with bipolar disorder.
You may sit there and think to yourself that you just don’t want to deal with this. You may want to be able to write it off as an “Oh well.” But, in fact, you’ve seen reasons why you can do that. Now, that you realize that, take the time to realize what changes you can make in your life to actually improve your overall quality of life.
Don’t try to make all of these changes today. Give yourself time and patience to work through each one. Doing so will give you more ability to actually be successful with coping with bipolar disorder.
In this chapter, we talk about a number of simple ways that you can improve your quality of life by learning coping techniques. Take them one step at a time but try to get them all worked into your lifestyle. They seem simple because they can be just that.
Believe it or not, the way that you sleep plays a significant role in your bipolar condition. What’s important to remember here is that when you sleep in a normal pattern, there are chemical changes in the brain that are beneficial to your condition.
To improve this condition, simply get enough sleep each night, but do this by going to bed about the same time each night and get up about the same time each morning. Creating a pattern like this will improve your bipolar symptoms.
If you work a job that has you sleeping strange times of the day, you need to try to work out a schedule so that even when you are not working, you are still sleeping the same times of the day. This is essential to your coping skills. It also gives your mind the time that it needs to clear and to wake up refreshed.
In fact, when you do need to make changes in your sleep pattern that are drastic, such as a new time zone, talk to your doctor about the best way to do this without causing problems for yourself.
We’ve talked a lot about taking the medications that you need to take and the reasons for doing so. But, you can also learn to cope with this process to make it that much more successful for you.
Take your medications even if you feel great. Do what your doctor tells you to do in regards to taking them even when you have no symptoms. Even if you feel really good, that’s your medication talking and working! By stopping the consumption of them, you simply allow the symptoms to begin all over again.
To make the entire process of medication taking easy plan out your schedule so as to include your dosing. For example, when you wake up in the morning, have your breakfast and take your morning pills. If you take a second pill later in the day, do so after dinner, for example. By pairing medication taking with meals, for example, you keep yourself from forgetting them.
If you do take more than one pill and are easily confused by them (and who wouldn’t be?) purchase a pill organizer and use this to portion out your medications. Those that are for a week or even a month at a time are excellent tools to insure that you don’t forget and don’t become confused with medications.
Another tip to remember about your medications is that they don’t mix well. If you get a cold, consult your doctor about which cold medications you can take with your bipolar medications. You should never mix them with any type of alcohol or other drugs.
If another doctor prescribed medications for you, don’t take them until you are fully sure that they are aware of the bipolar medications that you are taking. If and when medications are mixed, they can interact with each other and even bring on extreme conditions including health crisis like events.
An important part of managing bipolar disorder is to completely organize and regulate your life in the best way that you can. For those that are used to working very hard, every day, this may mean pulling back some to a normal paced activity level.
No matter what you do, by regulating the amount that you do the same or about the same each day, you also help to ease those chemicals in your brain and therefore avoid the symptoms that can sometimes happen when you are frantically running around one day and doing nothing but watching television the next day!
The temptation to use alcohol and drugs is very strong for many people. When you are dealing with the symptoms of bipolar disorder, you may feel the need to just relax. Turning to alcohol or drugs can be a huge temptation. The mood swings may feel better while you are intoxicated, but the mixture of medications with these substances can be fatal. Some will take alcohol and drugs to help them to sleep. The problem is that it almost always makes it even worse.
If you have problems with alcohol and drugs, seeking help and counseling will help to provide you the strength that you need to overcome this problem. One of the best tools to use is that of Alcoholics Anonymous or other self help groups. We’ll talk more about their benefits in just a minute.
The use of alcohol, caffeine and even over the counter medications can be deadly and can cause enough medical trouble for you to land you in the hospital. This is especially true for over the counter cold medications and allergy medications. Always check with your doctor about the right medications to use when you are ill.
In addition to that, realize that these over the counter medications and trigger mood swings, even when you are taking your medication.
They can interfere with your sleep patterns, cause loss of appetite and put your body in the position of being vulnerable. If you become sick, talk to your doctor about the best medications for your condition.
Caffeine offers the same type of trigger and keeps you from getting sleep, too. If you feel that you need coffee in the morning, you need to find a decaffeinated coffee or stop drinking it all together. Just a small amount of this type of product daily is all that it will take to limit the effectiveness of your medications.
Doing those four things can drastically improve the quality of life that you have. Although it may seem hard to not be able to have a drink, you know that the benefits of not having to deal with mood swings matters more.
Getting support from your family is vitally important. Many bipolar patients like to think that they can do it on their own. But, as we’ve discussed, it is very difficult to do this. Most of the time, you won’t realize how severe your mood swing is. You may not realize that you are lashing out at a loved one for no reason.
Step one is to tell those that you love about your bipolar disorder. As difficult as that sounds, those close to you can be your safety net. They can help you to realize what is happening and how you are acting. A supportive person will guide you to help and will stand by you through this prognosis and this life long challenge.
Step two is to realize that you aren’t the only one that is suffering. Bipolar patients often lash out at those that they love. Those in your family have to deal with mood swings that can be quite severe. Although you feel you can’t do much about this, helping your loved ones to be educated and informed about your condition will reduce the amount of stress that plays along with bipolar disorder.
If they know what you are suffering from, they can help you. If they don’t, they don’t understand why you are doing what you are doing. That leads to family stress and painful situations. Without an understanding of what is happening, your family just can’t be as supportive as they could be otherwise.
In addition to just having knowledge of the effect that bipolar disorder has on you, you should also seek out the help that you need from a family therapist. Even a family that doesn’t have much strife in it will need to get the help and support of a therapist. Bipolar disorder causes trauma in families and having this additional help is a saving grace in the way of understanding.
Finally, when an educated family can support the person that is suffering from bipolar disorder, he or she can strive for improvement with help. The family can provide support when mood swings take over.
And, they can help to keep you and your doctor informed about the way that you react to situations, to mood swings and even to your medications. That adds up to a successful situation for the bipolar disorder patient.
The family unit is a tool that all bipolar disorder patients need, but many times you may feel the desire to simply run and hide. You may feel as if you would rather be alone. Getting through that feeling will lead to success.
Just reading the title of this section you are thinking to yourself that you can’t do it. You’ve heard it before. You know that stress is a killer of many people, not just those that suffer from bipolar disorder. Yet, it is essential that you look at your life and identify those times when stress has lead to mood swings or even out of control behaviors that put you at risk.
Consider this. If you push yourself at work to be the person that does the most, what do you accomplish? You probably will cause the onset of numerous symptoms of bipolar disorder specifically that of mood swings. When this happens, you put yourself in a position of not being able to work or even worse putting your position at jeopardy.
Therefore, you end up not actually benefiting from all of your hard work, but instead have fewer benefits and ultimately you drop the productivity level that you could have had.
On the other hand, if you would have worked a steady schedule and done what you should have done in regards to stress management, you ultimately would have accomplished more.
Here are some tips for stress management at work.
Reducing stress should be one of the most important things that you do. By doing so, you lessen the risk of having a mood swing because of stress. Learn to spot stressful situations and learn how to get out of them effectively! It will pay off.
Believe it or not, learning to watch for signs of the onset of mood swings can be an excellent tool to aid you in coping with your illness. The early warning signs of an episode can be seen before they become full blown swings.
Why do you want to actually pay attention to this? There are a number of benefits that can come from you seeing and taking action when you see them.
Unfortunately, your doctor can only give you an idea of what will happen to you during a mood swing. That’s because each person is unique and that in itself provides for challenges. Each person will move from depressive symptoms to manic symptoms differently and at different times.
The faster you notice that your mood is changing, the faster you can take action to prevent it or at least to deal with what is coming. The faster you do this, the faster help can get to you.
What are the warning signs? Here are some things that can be a small mood change that ultimately can be a predictor of a large mood swing behind the next door. Learn to notice these to spot mood changes.
The early warning signs of a mood swing can be wonderful tools to aid you in spotting trouble before it happens, or at least to the degree that it can happen. But, one of the problems with this is that most people can’t spot these things on their own. They often see these stresses as just their everyday lifestyle.
For this reason, it is important that family members be able to spot these early warning signs and then help you to get through them. By spotting changes in you, your family can help you to get some help and quickly!
What should be done if you experience some of these mood changes? If you notice the warning signs, you should contact your doctor as soon as possible to find the relief that you need. He or she can offer supportive help that extends to medication if he deems it necessary.
This also can be helpful in spotting patterns of mood swings and that can be a tool to long term treatment as well.
Although you may hate to go to the doctor and you may think that your doctor never has anything good to say, it is very important to keep him informed. By telling him what is going on and what you are feeling, he can make better decisions for you.
You should contact your doctor:
Your doctor can help you to learn to cope with these situations. They can also prescribe medication differences that can also act as a tool to improving your health and well being.
By keeping your doctor informed, you allow your symptoms to be monitored. Your doctor can learn patterns and even notice the things that trigger these episodes to happen. That can lead to benefits throughout your lifetime including the avoidance of those situations which will lead to fewer episodes throughout your lifetime.
Learning to cope with bipolar disorder is a must. By taking a look at your life right now, you’ll be able to see things that can be changed that will ultimately improve your well being. Do you sleep right? Do you eat right? Do you know what your early warning signs are? Taking care of these changes now will ultimately improve your overall well being.
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