Factors such as stress, poor sleep, and even seasonal changes can play a role in triggering your bipolar symptoms. Learn how you can reduce your risk of bipolar episodes and better manage your condition.
Sleep, negative life events, drug and alcohol use, seasonal changes, the reproductive cycle, as well as goal attainment and positive events can all have a deleterious impact on your stability, triggering a destructive cycle of mood switching.
Bipolar may worsen with age or over time if this condition is left untreated. As time goes on, a person may experience episodes that are more severe and more frequent than when symptoms first appeared.
Risk factors
Factors that may increase the risk of developing bipolar disorder or act as a trigger for the first episode include: Having a first-degree relative, such as a parent or sibling, with bipolar disorder. Periods of high stress, such as the death of a loved one or other traumatic event. Drug or alcohol abuse.
Bipolar Triggers and Warning Signs
Bipolar disorder features extreme shifts in mood that are unpredictable and often disruptive to daily functioning. Changes in sleep patterns, eating habits, emotions, and behaviors accompany the mood swings.
Drugs with a definite propensity to cause manic symptoms include levodopa, corticosteroids and anabolic-androgenic steroids. Antidepressants of the tricyclic and monoamine oxidase inhibitor classes can induce mania in patients with pre-existing bipolar affective disorder.
Some evidence suggests that caffeine may worsen mood destabilization in bipolar disorder, potentially leading to manic episodes. Caffeine can also disrupt bipolar disorder treatment, resulting in potentially dangerous side effects or reduced treatment effectiveness.
Although there is no official classification for end stage bipolar disorder, mild structural changes in the brain that lead to cognitive dysfunction can severely reduce someone's quality of life, especially toward the end of life.
Bipolar disorder is a chronic mental illness with the peak age of onset between 20 and 40 years. Yassa et al2 proposed age 50 as a cut off for the late onset bipolar disorder. They also reported that about 90 percent of cases have onset prior to age 50.
While bipolar disorder cannot develop into schizophrenia, it's possible to experience symptoms of both. Before you consult a mental health professional, here are a few things you should know about the two conditions.
People with bipolar disorder often experience irritability. This emotion is common during manic episodes, but it can occur at other times too. A person who's irritable is easily upset and often bristles at others' attempts to help them. They may be easily annoyed or aggravated with someone's requests to talk.
Bipolar anger and rage can be common symptoms for people living with bipolar disorder. Not everyone will experience these intense emotional states, but for those who do, it makes this mental health condition even more challenging to navigate.
“When stressed, bipolar patients will often, out of desperation, reach for anything to calm themselves or take away the stress even for a moment. Drugs, binge-eating, or excessive shopping can be unhealthy coping mechanisms that can bring on mood episodes,” Dr. Israel says.
Eating a balance of protective, nutrient-dense foods. These foods include fresh fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole grains, lean meats, cold-water fish, eggs, low-fat dairy, soy products, and nuts and seeds. These foods provide the levels of nutrients necessary to maintain good health and prevent disease, in general.
Cocoa beans are rich in a variety of mood-lifting ingredients (including phenylethylamine, a neurotransmitter that appears to relieve depression symptoms) that are most concentrated in dark chocolate. A recent study found that eating 1.5 oz. of dark chocolate a day for two weeks reduced the level of stress hormones.
A Flu or Cold Makes Bipolar Worse
Moods tend to be unstable when you cough yourself awake all night or can't move from the couch all day. Even a person who was happy before a flu or cold can find themselves unhappy, and possibly even spiralling into depression, thanks to the misery of being ill.
Oral or parenteral benzodiazepines, alone or in combination with an antipsychotic, are recommended as first-line treatment for the termination of behavioral emergencies in mania.
Factors such as stress, poor sleep, and even seasonal changes can play a role in triggering your bipolar symptoms. Learn how you can reduce your risk of bipolar episodes and better manage your condition.
As mentioned previously, the most common misdiagnosis for bipolar patients is unipolar depression. An incorrect diagnosis of unipolar depression carries the risk of inappropriate treatment with antidepressants, which can result in manic episodes and trigger rapid cycling.
The Brain and Bipolar Disorder
Norepinephrine and serotonin have been consistently linked to psychiatric mood disorders such as depression and bipolar disorder. Nerve pathways within areas of the brain that regulate pleasure and emotional reward are regulated by dopamine.