Cbt For Bipolar Disorder: How It Works
What causes the highs and lows of bipolar disorder? According to a study published in January 2015 in the journal Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice, bipolar mood swings are influenced by your thoughts. The researchers found that having extremely negative thoughts may bring on whats called descent behaviors associated with depression, while overly positive thoughts can lead to ascent behaviors associated with mania.
Practicing CBT may be a way to level out these extremes. Cognitive behavioral therapy capitalizes on the fact that our thoughts, actions, and emotions are all interconnected and can influence one another, says Simon Rego, PsyD, director of the CBT Training Program at Montefiore Medical Center/Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York.
CBT teaches you how to catch, challenge, and change flawed thoughts as well as identify and correct troublesome behavior patterns. For example, imagine your boss emails you saying she wants to talk to you about your latest project. A negative emotional response, such as jumping to the conclusion that she hates your work and that youre going to get fired, can take you down the path to depression. CBT teaches you to respond to situations with calmer thoughts, such as that your boss may simply want to ask you some questions about your work, which keeps your mood stable. People often feel better emotionally and attain a better quality of life after undergoing CBT, Dr. Rego says.
Keep The Depression In Mind When Communicating With The Person
The person may not respond or relate to you as they do when they are well.
- What comforts one person who has symptoms of bipolar depression might not comfort another .
- Let the person know you care, but not to the extent that it makes the person feel overwhelmed and helpless.
- Dont force the person to talk. When a person is depressed they may not be able to tell you what they are feeling or what help they need.
- Avoid telling the person to pull themselves together or snap out of it.
- Dont always mention the illness when encouraging the person to do something. For example, lethargy and lack of energy can make it hard for people with depression to do things. Encourage the person to do a bit of physical activity by saying something like Please help me bring the groceries in from the car .
- Sometimes, just being there without telling the person what to do can be comforting for them.
What Are The Symptoms Of Clinical Depression
If you choose to try all-natural as well as organic supplements, remember that they can have side effects and also medicine or food communications. For example, St. Johns Wort a promising herb used for treatment of mild to modest depression can interfere with prescription medicines such as blood slimmers, birth control pills, as well as prescription antidepressants. Make how to treat depression bipolar sure your doctor or specialist recognizes what you are taking. Taking care of symptoms of depression includes locating the appropriate combination of medicines and also treatments. The dangers for depression can proceed after the child shows up. Postpartum depression, which is also called significant depressive condition with peripartum onset, is a significant problem for new moms.
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Encourage As Much Routine As Possible
Bipolar moods can disrupt a persons routines and sleep patterns. However, this disruption can also make moods worse. Sleeping in the day can make it much harder to sleep at night. Going to bed and getting up at regularly times may help. Having something in particular to do in the morning helps some people with bipolar depression to get up at a regular time.
Create An Emergency Action Plan
Despite your best efforts, there may be times when you experience a relapse into full-blown mania or severe depression. In crisis situations where your safety is at stake, your loved ones or doctor may have to take charge of your care. Such times can leave you feeling helpless and out of control, but having a crisis plan in place allows you to maintain some degree of responsibility for your own treatment.
A plan of action typically includes:
A list of emergency contacts for your doctor, therapist, and close family members.
A list of all medications you are taking, including dosage information.
Symptoms that indicate you need others to take responsibility for your care, and information about any other health problems you have.
Treatment preferences such as who you want to care for you, what treatments and medications do and do not work, and who is authorized to make decisions on your behalf.
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What Can I Do To Help Myself
Learning to recognise the early triggers and warning signs of an upcoming episode and knowing what to do to cope will help you maintain your wellbeing and feel more in control of your mental health.
- learning about bipolar and read/listen to stories of other people who have found a way through
- learning your particular early warning signs or triggers by keeping a mood diary
- identifying and reducing stressful activities
- ensuring you are eating healthy food
- using relaxation exercises, yoga, meditation or massage
- getting enough sleep
- spending time in nature even just sitting in the sunshine listening to the birds singing for a few moments can be really helpful
- getting some exercise
- peer support
- support from people with the same background as you
- getting support from family/whnau, friends, therapists
- humour: comedies on TV, funny movies
- cut back on non-prescribed drugs and alcohol
- fun: Make sure you regularly do things that you enjoy and that give your life meaning
- being kind to yourself and others
- practices from your own culture
- write a relapse plan.
What Causes Bipolar Disorder
The cause of bipolar disorder isnt clear. Research suggests that a combination of different things can make it more likely that you will develop bipolar disorder.
Genetic factors
There is a 13% chance you will develop bipolar disorder if someone in your immediate family, like a parent, brother or sister has bipolar disorder.
This risk is higher if both of your parents have the condition or if your twin has the condition.
Researchers havent found the exact genes that cause bipolar disorder. But different genes have been linked to the development of bipolar disorder.
Brain chemical imbalance
Different chemicals in your brain affect your mood and behaviour. Too much or too little of these chemicals could lead to you developing mania or depression.
Environmental factors
Stressful life events can trigger symptoms of bipolar disorder. Such as childhood abuse or the loss of a loved one. They can increase your chances of developing depressive episodes.
You can find more information about Does mental illness run in families? by clicking here.
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Current Status Of Bipolar Depression
Adequate understanding, timely diagnosis, and effective short- and long-term treatment of depressive episodes in BD patients are critically important but remarkably insufficiently resolved . Clinical significance of bipolar depression is underscored by strong association with overall morbidity, other co-occurring psychiatric conditions , disability, and excess mortality owing largely to suicide in young patients and intercurrent medical illness in older patients .
Keep Sharp For Advising Indications Of Suicide
The medicine functions differently than those made use of formerly, he keeps in mind, calling ketamine the anti-medication medication. With most medicines, like valium, the anti-anxiety result how to recover from bipolar depression you get only lasts when it is in your system. When you take ketamine, it sets off responses in your cortex that make it possible for mind connections to regrow.
Good nourishment, in addition to expert therapy, is often a keystone for the management of any mental illness. In a state of poor nutrition, a lot of treatments for depression will have limited efficiency , Wassenaar clarifies. Fighting Depression at Mount Sinai Take an interesting consider how to recover from bipolar depression the scientific research behind Mount Sinais study right into the reasons and also treatments for major depression. CBT, a type of talk therapy, concentrates on transforming unfavorable thought patterns, and after that discovering how to pinpoint particular troubles and also locate new means to approach them. Other brand-new techniques to treating depression are on the horizon.
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What Risks And Complications Can Bipolar Disorder Cause
There can be complications and risks for people who live with bipolar disorder. But these risks can be lessened with the right support and treatment.
What about suicide and self-harm?
You might have an illness where you experience psychosis, such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. Your risk of suicide is estimated to be between 5% and 6% higher than the general population.
You are more likely to try to take your own life if you have a history of attempted suicide and depression. It is important that you get the right treatment for your symptoms of depression and have an up to date crisis plan.
There is also research that suggests you are 30% – 40% more likely to self-harm if you live with bipolar disorder.
What about financial risk?
If you have mania or hypomania you may struggle to manage your finances. You may spend lots of money without thinking about the effect that it may have on your life.
You could make a Lasting Power of Attorney. This is a legal process. This means that you pick someone that you trust to manage your finances if you lack mental capacity to manage them by yourself.
You can work with your carer and mental health team. You can form an action plan. This can say what they can do if you have a period of mania or hypomania and you start to make poor financial decisions.
What about physical health risk?
What about alcohol and drugs risk?
If you want advice or help with alcohol or drug use contact your GP.
What about driving risk?
What Can I Do To Manage My Symptoms
You can learn to manage your symptoms by looking after yourself. Selfcare is how you take care of your diet, sleep, exercise, daily routine, relationships and how you are feeling.
What lifestyle changes can I make?
Making small lifestyle changes can improve your wellbeing and can help your recovery.
Routine helps many people with their mental wellbeing. It will help to give a structure to your day and may give you a sense of purpose. This could be a simple routine such as eating at the same time each day, going to bed at the same time each day and buying food once per week.
Your healthcare professionals should offer you a combined healthy eating, exercise and sleep programme.
You can find more information about wellbeing any physical health at:www.rethink.org/advice-and-information/living-with-mental-illness/wellbeing-physical-health/.
What are support groups?
You could join a support group. A support group is where people come together to share information, experiences and give each other support.
You might be able to find a local group by searching online. The charity Bipolar UK have an online support group. They also have face to face support groups in some areas of the country. Their contact details are in the Useful contacts at the bottom of this page.
What are recovery colleges?
Unfortunately, recovery colleges arent available in all areas. To see if there is a recovery college in your area you can use a search engine such as Google.
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Where To Find Help For Bipolar Depression
You can find information locally, in your community. Common places include:
- Doctors offices and clinics
- Hospitals
- Libraries
- University or high school health centers
Online sources of help can be useful, too. These organizations have extensive resource pages that include links to more references, informative articles, and bipolar disorder treatment- and support group locators which allow you to search for bipolar depression help by zip code. Among the most reputable and helpful are:
Crisis lines are important to have on hand. If your bipolar depression ever makes you feel so hopeless that you consider harming yourself or taking your own life, these sources of bipolar depression help connect you with people who are there to listen, talk, and provide additional help.
Getting help for bipolar depression can help you not just survive the difficulties it creates but move past those difficulties and thrive. Use the above information to find people, programs, and support groups that fit you, then utilize the processes to start improving your life.
Antidepressants For Bipolar Depression
Ease and relative safety of treating depressive episodes with modern antidepressants, and strenuous efforts to minimize or avoid depression by BD patients and clinicians, have made antidepressants the leading treatment provided to BD patients . Nevertheless, there is a striking paucity of therapeutic experimentation and inconsistent findings, despite more than a half-century of use of antidepressant drugs to treat depression, with particularly serious gaps regarding dysthymia and dysphoria, mixed features, and long-term prophylaxis for bipolar depression . Many experts advise caution in using antidepressants, particularly for BD-I patients to avoid potentially dangerous mood-switches, and encourage their use, if necessary, only with mood-stabilizing agents or SGAs, and without current mixed features or agitation .
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Be Your Own Drill Sergeant
Lets start with one of my favorites, Strategy #6, Be Your Own Drill Sergeant.
This strategy teaches the idea that a person who is depressed still has an inner guide that can rise up and help them even when they feel hopeless and helpless.
What follows is an excerpt from my book:
Even if youre the type who responds well to softer language, you probably have days when talking to yourself in a calm and gentle way wont work. It might be that the depressions wont lift and getting things done is impossible, even if you use a certain approach that has helped in the past. These are the days when you must step aside and let someone or something else take over. Sometimes you need to call upon your inner drill sergeant and let him or her take over and get you back on track. This takes imagination and a willingness to be slightly silly, but you can do it.
I use this technique every day when Im depressed. I created it in the 1990s, when I realized that what my brain was saying was not my reality.
I am in bed.The depression cascades over my head.I feel hopeless and helpless.
My thoughts: Not another day of this! I cant go on like this! Why is my life so hard! Other people have it so much easier! What is wrong with me! Why am I so unhappy!
All of this before I even get out of bed!
In the past, I lived this so completely, I didnt know it was serious depression. It enveloped me. I was often in bed for weeks.
And then I heard my inner drill sergeant voice:
How To Treat Depression Bipolar A Womans Perspective
A thorough consumption process aids our professionals gather information and also make a proper medical diagnosis. Once diagnosed, our professionals team up with locals to establish the suitable level of treatment and how to treat depression bipolar mix of mental health treatment approaches. As an example, if individuals are struggling with co-occurring mental wellness problems, our Co-Occurring Rehab Service would be valuable.
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Tips For Coping With Bipolar Disorder In The Family
Accept your loved ones limits. Your loved one with bipolar disorder cant control their moods. They cant just snap out of a depression or get a hold of themselves during a manic episode. Neither depression nor mania can be overcome through self-control, willpower, or reasoning. So telling your loved one to Stop acting crazy or to Look on the bright side wont help.
Accept your own limits. You cant rescue your loved one with bipolar disorder, nor can you force them to take responsibility for getting better. You can offer support, but ultimately, recovery is in the hands of the person with the illness.
Reduce stress. Stress makes bipolar disorder worse, so try to find ways to reduce stress in your loved ones life. Ask how you can help and volunteer to take over some of the persons responsibilities if needed. Establishing and enforcing a daily routinewith regular times for getting up, having meals, and going to bedcan also reduce family stress.
Communicate openly. Open and honest communication is essential to coping with bipolar disorder in the family. Share your concerns in a loving way, ask your loved one how theyre feeling, and make an effort to truly listeneven if you disagree with your loved one or dont relate to whats being said.
Supporting a person with bipolar disorder
What you can say that helps:
Learn The Signs And Symptoms Of Bipolar Disorder
The symptoms of bipolar disorder can show up in people differently. Learn the signs of depressive and manic episodes. It can help to directly ask your friend things like:
- What do your manic or depressive symptoms look like?
- Is getting worse or better?
- Are there signs that I should look out for that things are getting worse or getting better?
- What are the coping strategies that work for you?
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Other Ways To Help Someone With Bipolar Disorder
You can also support your loved one by:
Learning about bipolar disorder. Learn everything you can about the symptoms and treatment options. The more you know about bipolar disorder, the better equipped youll be to help your loved one and keep things in perspective.
Encouraging the person to get help. The sooner bipolar disorder is treated, the better the prognosis, so urge your loved one to seek professional help right away. Dont wait to see if they will get better without treatment.
Being understanding. Let your friend or family member know that youre there if they need a sympathetic ear, encouragement, or assistance with treatment. People with bipolar disorder are often reluctant to seek help because they dont want to feel like a burden to others, so remind the person that you care and that youll do whatever you can to help.
Showing patience. Getting better takes time, even when a person is committed to treatment. Dont expect a quick recovery or a permanent cure. Be patient with the pace of recovery and prepare for setbacks and challenges. Managing bipolar disorder is a lifelong process.
The importance of support in bipolar disorder recovery
People with bipolar disorder do better when they have support from family members and friends. They tend to recover more quickly, experience fewer manic and depressive episodes, and have milder symptoms.