Many people have been noticing the very long days of late Spring and early Summer. There is more energy to get things done, although that energy can end up being challenged into anxiety and irritability if you aren’t careful and don’t get at least a few hours of sleep every night… I often think about my trips to Alaska a …
New Home – Redux
This past week, we spent another couple of days trying to figure out why the site was suddenly inaccessible for several long periods of time. Some of you may recall that we only recently moved to a new web hosting service and it was my expectation that this new service, with its dedicated server, would provide us with better responsiveness for the …
Soul Training – Lyndsey
One difficult aspect of living with bipolar disorder, especially when it is new, is that our ever changing moods make it difficult to keep up a regular and normal social life. After all, If you can’t get out of bed for 3 weeks on account of acute depression, it’s pretty hard to make new or keep existing commitments. In my …
Longevity and Having a Purpose in Life
Studies in older adults have suggested that having a sense of purpose in life can add years to longevity. Now researchers have taken a look at the question of whether these beneficial effects occur in younger people. The study looked at a group of 6163 people aged 20 to 75 and followed them for 14 years. They found that having …
Stress and Trauma as Risk Factors for Bipolar
I have long been interested in the relationship between traumatic experiences and bipolar disorder. A couple of years ago I gave a presentation at the University of California, San Francisco, Bipolar Disorder Clinic on the topic. I got interested in the issue because I noticed how many of the women in my clinic with bipolar disorder also had childhood PTSD. …
Children of Bipolar Parents – Risk of Having a Mood Disorder
One of the most common questions I am asked is, what are the odds, if I am bipolar, of my children having bipolar. Recently we ran across a research study that tries to answer this question. The Pittsburgh Bipolar Offspring study, directed by Boris Birmaher of the University of Pittsburgh, looked at the odds of developing psychiatric disorders in children of parents …
Specialized Treatment for Bipolar is More Effective
We couldn’t have said it better ourselves. A recent article from the excellent Bipolar News Network, summarizes a study that showed that specialized treatment for bipolar was more effective than usual care and actually saved money (the cost savings from avoiding hospitalization more than paid for greater outpatient treatment costs). Patients who had been hospitalized for a first episode of mania were …
Irritability and Coming Home from Work
I feel bad about it but at the end of the day I end up in a fight with my husband. It starts with me telling him that I am anxious about the work I am doing… there are lots of things going on and I feel anxious about whether I am doing a good job… but he doesn’t reassure …
Friends: Who to Tell and Who to Keep – Lyndsey
If you are like me, the life you created for yourself pre-diagnosis is probably not going to be the healthiest influence during this time of transition. Remember that old adage about birds flocking together? Now is the time to be aware of which birds you are flying with. Family. So you can’t do anything about who you’re stuck with in …
Stay Involved
Stay involved! We have been hosting a much more active forum these past couple of weeks. As I replied to some posts and read others, I realized that we have some members of the forum who have not participated in quite a while. I would like to try to ensure that the membership of the forum consists of people who are actively engaged …
Office Work and Moods – How to Stay Effective
I recently spent an interesting half an hour talking with a very successful businessman who has bipolar about how to get his office work done even though he has periods when he is depressed, and his thought processes are slowed down. One of his big issues is that when he is depressed he finds himself staring off into space rather than working his …
Sleep and the Lunar Cycle
One of our readers wondered if bipolar people are more sensitive to lunar cycles. I could not find any evidence for that, but I did run across a recent research report suggesting that everyone (bipolar or not) may have a sleep cycle that corresponds to the phase of the moon. Researchers at the University of Basel studied 33 people and …
Happy Birthday MoodSurfing
Time flies when you are having fun! It is hard to believe, but this site has been up and running for two years. And growing and evolving. Right now we have four active authors. We have a forum where people can receive support, get advice, give advice, and generally talk about the challenges faced when you try to “live creatively …
Training Your Brain – by Lyndsey
I’m an avid animal lover in general, and dog lover in specific. I take a lot of life’s cues from dogs because they are such happy creatures. They greet every day with joy, rarely obsess and generally live in the moment, which seems to make them content. And I want that. I was listening to the Dog Whisperer give advice …
Acceptance: Living with Bipolar
I recently came across an article that described a man’s experience with bipolar disorder. I was struck by his reported shift in his relationship to the disorder from one of fighting it to one of embracing it and learning how to live with it as opposed to against it. This is such a powerful and difficult transition; one that can …
Mood Swings – What Causes Them?
What causes mood swings? What do we think about when someone says their mood has been “up and down?”Among the most common causes of mood shifts are the following: A mood disorder such as bipolar, or an atypical depression. Bipolar as a cause is obvious, but an atypical depression can also be associated with mood swings. In the case of bipolar …
MoodSurfing – It Isn’t About Reaching a Goal
I have had a couple of conversations this past week that reminded me of my belief that one of the big problems in this country is our preoccupation with “results.” Elsewhere, I’ve noted how this leads to short term strategies that have bad long term consequences. In education, this means cramming for exams instead of learning the material. In business it means not investing in …
Why Do We Procrastinate?
Procrastination may be related to impulsive decision making. This somewhat surprising finding is based on a large study of twins. Most modern explanations of procrastination have focused on avoidance and aversion. You put off things because you are afraid of some negative consequence (doing badly, not meeting your standards, etcetera), in other words, you are avoiding a bad outcome. More recent studies have suggested that …
Bipolar for Beginners
So you’ve just learned that you are bipolar. If you’re like me, things in your outer world have unraveled and you now find yourself with a new diagnosis and (hopefully) a helpful psychiatrist. I’m going to list the ‘awarenesses’ that helped me understand how my new brain works in the hopes that these will help speed up your own recovery. …
Welcome Lyndsey to the Site
I am very happy to welcome a new writer to the blog. Her name is Lyndsey, and I will be posting her first entry in a couple of hours. I think that you will find that she adds a unique perspective on what it takes to “live creatively with moods.” Here is what she wrote as an introduction – My …