Tips for mania

@The-red-centaur when I am manic I am best staying in the house as I go completely out of my mind. A warm shower then play my music really loud and fast (with earpones on) and try and sleep with hot water bottle. I find that helps me. Hope you are feeling more settled soon. xxx

Sometimes vigorous activity helps

I get housework and gardening done

also dancing helps, but I have not done that enough ... hmmmm .... something to add to my life ....

Hi @The-red-centaur

this is a flash mob

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1U2bdXZzel0

Hey @The-red-centaur, hope you've found some good options for your excess energy today. You mentioned it has been a year since you had a manic episode – what kind of activties have you had success with in the past?

At least you know you're manic @The-red-centaur.

I find cleaning good, and tend to go into a bit of a cooking frenzy.

Physical activity is also good. I walk a lot, and I tend to knock myself out with prns in the evenings because lack of sleep is they key cause and effect for me.

Take care.

hey I'm not really sure what 'mania' actually is (I've been labelled with it in lots of different situations and eventually abandoned the concept)

But one of the things been feeling when labelled 'mania' was what I now identify as more of a Post-trauma response: very stressed out, can't calm down, hard to sleep, things afraid of very big, lots of energy mobilised etc

I used to use meds for it, now I try to avoid them - just becuase I've found that it helped me develop other ways of coping - but the meds did help back when I did use them.

The hard part for me was finding something that could 'break' the stress - if I coudln't break it it would go on for a long time that I'd be stuck in a stress response (body in survival mode), lose sleep etc.

One of the things that really helped was a kind of tibetan meditation called '3 doors' a teacher on youtube called Tenzin Wangyal I found helpful

Other things were recognising it as a fear/stress/trauma response rather than 'mania' - though it's six of one half a dozen of the other.

Peter Levine's 'somatic experiencing' technique - and his theory around high energy trauma helped too.

Expressing the emotion in not harmful ways and spending it, connecting with others who helped me feel safe, retreating from others if that helped me feel safe, feeling warm, retreating into tv shows (distraction) etc, huddling on the couch, cuddling soft toys, favourite pet friends etc

basically I discovered anything that helped me feel safe could help me shift states from 'survival mode' to 'safety mode'

The Blue Knot foundation helpline is really good though they are hard to get through to - they can offer grounding exercises that can help calm.