What is Bipolar Disorder?

Bipolar disorder is a mental health condition where the person experiences extreme mood swings, emotional highs like hypomania, or lows like depression. In fact, the emotional mood swings might happen rarely or could happen multiple times a year. And while most people might experience emotional symptoms, many of them might not even. But the fact that matters is, bipolar disorder is common. One in a hundred people have been diagnosed across the globe and it does take about 10 years as what experts suggest for one person to find out, the person is bipolar.

Symptoms of Bipolar Disorder

Symptoms could be many. In fact, it's very difficult to actually find out if you are bipolar or if you are showing symptoms of bipolar, considering that it could be just a regular bad mood or good mood. Ups and downs are common in a person's life.

It is difficult to diagnose bipolar in teens and younger children, but more or less experts suggest that bipolar can be detected by the age of 20. Now, symptoms of bipolar disorder depend on which mood you're experiencing. In fact, when you become depressed, you may feel sad or hopeless and lose interest or pleasure in most activities. You might also be too tired to get out of bed full of self-loathing, hopelessness over being unemployed, or whatever be the reason. It's quite hard to actually detect if you are bipolar. But the striking feeling, overwhelming feeling of self-loathing, depression, and even feelings of suicide might take precedence.

Now, it's not just the lows there are also the highest. When your mood shifts of mania or hypomania, that's when you suddenly feel euphoric, you feel totally excited, or you can feel unusually irritable. And during this time, you might impulsively quit your job, charge up huge amounts on your credit cards by spending large amounts of money, which you otherwise wouldn't do. You would try to buy things that you can't afford. You do things very impulsively and this could also take away your sleep. You start talking quickly and you do act abnormally at a time like this.

But one thing's for sure, these mood swings can adversely affect your sleep, your activity, your behavior, your judgment, and the ability. Unlike ordinary mood swings, the mood changes of bipolar disorder is so intense that they can interfere with your job, your school performance, or anything, your daily duties. It can damage your relationships and even disappear the ability to function in daily life.

Causes of Bipolar Disorder

It's really hard to say how some people develop bipolar disorder and why others don't. There could be multiple reasons, but a few of them are genetic disorders. If a first family member or first-degree family member or relatives such as a sibling or a parent has the condition, then it's more likely that you could get it too. Biological differences, People with bipolar disorder appear to have physical changes in their brains. And then you have the environmental factors where you have stress, you have some baggage that's weighing you down. That could be the reason for you to develop bipolar disorder in time.

Treatment For Bipolar Disorder

Although bipolar disorder is a lifelong condition, but there are certainly ways that you can use true medical help to control your mood swings and get better over time. So how can you help yourself? In order to successfully managed bipolar disorder, you've got to make some smart choices.

The smart choices are, you've got to have your healthy lifestyle in order. The first thing is, get moving by doing some physical activities like working out, dancing, swimming, walking, or anything that up your cardio. It just generally gives you the happy hormones to move forward. Keep stress in check by avoiding high-stress situations, maintaining a healthy work-life balance, or even indulging in yoga or meditation is the best way that you can keep stress at bay. Seek support from your family, if not for anyone else. Your loved ones, trusted friends are like I said, try joining a support group and speak it out. The more you speak it out, you like to do yourself up and then you've got to make healthy choices. You've got to sleep healthily, sleep a good amount of hours, and also eat healthily. Keep a check on your diet and of course, monitor your mood swings. It's very important to check your mood swings and if you're feeling uncomfortable, do things that make you feel happy. Nip the problem at the bud before it even starts. So if you are showing up signs of bipolar disorder, if your mood swings are way too extreme, then don't hesitate to seek help before it's too late.