What Are Triggers, and How Do They Affect Bipolar?

Good Evening Friends, Hope today has been a good day for you. For those who are really struggling, I send up extra prayers for you on your behalf. Today’s Topic is “What are triggers, and how they do play a role in managing bipolar?”

    Some of you are probably wondering what I’m referring to if you’ve just become diagnosed, or maybe you know exactly what I’m referring to .The Things that set you off, the Things that trigger deep dark emotions that come pouring out into your daily lives. As someone who dealt with bipolar, who knows all about triggers and how they can bring you down so quickly, especially if you aren’t ware of what they are and how you will react.

   It’s very important to understand your illness; it’s important to know the issues that can, or will set you off. Some will be personal to you; others will be relatable to most of us. If you have trust issues, then that might be a trigger for you. If you have abandonment issues then that would be a issue for you. If there was a death in your family, that will bring up emotions. We can’t run from bipolar, but we can learn to cope and live healthy and productive lives in every sense of the word. There are other personal issues that might trigger an episode, so be aware, and plan ahead on how you will handle them when they come along.

    Then there are those triggers that are common sense, and will apply to each of us, to keep us stable and to be able to cope with our illness in such a way that won’t send us into a downward spiral or upward manic episode. So here those are: Making sure that you eat healthy, it’s not about a diet, it’s about a lifestyle change that will impact your entire body, and that includes your mind. Just like we need to care for our bodies when they are sick, we need to care for our minds too. Then there is getting plenty of sleep, that’s a big one, which was one that was a trigger for me, lack of sleep plays into how our brains function, and can makes it tough for those dealing with bipolar to think with clarity. And there is a big one….STRESS yes that word that we all hate, but all have in some form, part of learning healthy coping skills in learning to handle stress when it comes, in  healthy ways, not letting it take over our thoughts.

    These all play into each other, you can now see why its important to know your triggers, if your job is stressing you out, that could be one of your triggers, if a relationship is wearing you down, and hurting you emotionally or physically, then that would be a trigger, so stresses in our lives can turn into triggers if we aren’t aware of them and have a plan of action on how to handle them in the most effective way

     .Learning what your triggers are will help you better manage your bipolar in a much more productive and healthy way. Talking about your feelings will help you recognize them, if you are not sure, what might help in the begging of this process is keeping a journal or a log of what triggers you and then bring it with you to your therapy appointments and discuss those issues, so you can get a professional input on how to cope.

   Knowing what triggers a episode  for you, planning ahead and being proactive in your treatment is important, you can do it, its takes time ,I’ve been stable and off most of my meds for over 10  years, I know what my triggers are and I daily stay on top of them, so I will not have setbacks. I now hope to pass on these things ive learned, so you too can be proactive and have more understanding of bipolar