Stress and Bipolar Illness

Stress puts physical, emotional and psychological stress on us.  Stress can trigger a bipolar episode.  Understanding how stress brings on an episode gives us more control over the illness and our lives helping us to prevent and manage stress and episodes.

Changing the way we think and behave when stressed is the ideal.  Learning coping skills can help minimize the impact that stress has and can reduce the bipolar symptoms.

We can recognize the symptoms of stress including: tension, anxiety, frustration and changes in appetite and sleeping habits. There are also physical signs stomach distress, headaches, sleeping difficulties and constant fatigue.

 

Learning coping skills to reduce the symptoms fo stress and keeping healthy can help you manage your moodswings. Chronic stress is a trigger for bipolar episodes. Uncocntrolled stress leads to severe mania and depression. Having bipolar disorder can be very stressful in itself and creates anxiety that causes the symptoms.

Medicatioon that reduces anxiety or psychotherapy helps bipolars to learn how to stop the worrying about what might become an episode and be more aware of how we respond to environmental stressors.

Coping with stress means you identiffy the source of the stress and then make the deccision to reduce the impacct that the stress has in your present mood.

Keeping track of your behavior when faced with a stressor can give you antistress behavior skills. If you can change the stressor it is a big step but you may have to make changes in the way you handle the stressor.

There are many strategies that can control stress. Working with these techniques with a therapist can help improve your moods and minimize the impact that stress has in preventing future episodes.