2. The choices we make to remain healthy will affect the rest of
our lives. If you don’t take the opportunity to change
unhealthy habits right now it could mean that you are less
likely to manage your moods.
3. Introduction
Bipolar disorders cause instability in
Moods
Intellect
Energy levels
Behaviour and the Activities that result from these
changes
One of the best ways to counter this is by developing
a more stable lifestyle with a flexible daily routine.
This routine should include various schedules to
encourage regularity and to avoid extremes
in all things.
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4. In order for medication to work properly you need to take
your medications according to your consultant’s instructions.
Most often, this means taking the proper dose of your
medication at the same time every day.
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5. Non-adherence to medication
Firstly there are several reasons why a person
suffering from bipolar disorder might resist
medications to begin with due to many factors,
including:
Sometimes people do not seek treatment because
they don't believe they are suffering from a problem.
Experiencing one or more symptoms of bipolar
disorder (denial, delusional thinking, poor judgment,
etc.).
Social stigma of a mental illness.
Fear losing the ability to lead a "normal" life.
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6. Acceptance but not adherence
They don't want to be controlled by an outside force
and are seeking to gain control in their lives.
They don't want to deal with the medication's side
effects.
They miss living in a high-energy state.
They see a reduction in symptoms and believe they
don't need the medication anymore.
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7. For medication to work properly
Take your medications according to your consultant’s
instructions.
Take the proper dose of your medication at the same
time every day.
Consider incorporating it into one of your daily
routines, such as after a meal, brushing your teeth
or going to bed.
Even with people around you,
And when you are not in your home.
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8. The cornerstone of self-management. Yet so difficult to
achieve whilst living in the “Real World”.
Many people with bipolar disorder find that sticking to a daily
schedule can help control their mood.
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9. The Challenge
To change from a life of irregularity and impulsivity
to one with a structured routine.
Try incorporating all of these things into a pattern
that you more or less stick to every day:
Sleep. Personal Hygiene.
Healthy meals. Plus medication & Supplements.
A good balance between work, social
activities, exercise and relaxation.
Mood Tracking.
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10. Set times for sleeping, eating, exercising, relaxing,
working, socializing and (at the end of the day)
Mood Tracking, and try to maintain your schedule,
even through emotional ups and downs.
Break your day down into manageable sections.
Be flexible NOT rigid – something you can live NOT
something that will stress you out trying to
complete.
Use anything that will help such as the
Daily Routine App for iPhone:
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12. First on the list of challenging but essential lifestyle changes.
It is crucial that you change from a life of going to bed at irregular
times, to one where you go to bed and get out of bed at the same
time everyday for the rest of your life so as to get adequate sleep.
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13. This is such a difficult life choice because it interferes
with so many things that many of you are used to
and loathe to give up.
Sleeping enough is an important part of managing
your mood.
You need to be disciplined.
If you don’t change anything else change your
sleeping patterns.
Make your bedroom a place to sleep.
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14. However tempting it may be, try not to break this
routine on weekends when you may want to stay up
much later or sleep in.
Your overall sleep will be better if you stick to your
routine seven days per week.
Getting adequate sleep on a regular schedule is very
effective in preventing mood cycling.
To help you monitor your sleep patterns and
the quality of your sleep use the
Sleep Cycle App for iPhone:
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16. The next most important lifestyle change you can put into
practice is to adopt a healthy diet and a healthier way of
eating your food, at the same time of the day, each day, for
the rest of your life.
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17. Unhealthy to Healthy
Changing from an unhealthy diet that you may have
been brought up on, thinking it was “normal” and
therefore healthy, not knowing any better, to one
where you choose healthy options is a very difficult
thing to accomplish.
Lack of knowledge of what is good for you and what
is not for a start.
What about all those favourite foods that you “can’t”
give up.
Going out to eat or eating on the run.
Cost.
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18. Food and Mood
Cravings.
Digestive problems.
Unable to keep to a regular time to eat.
Lunch at work often missed or only snack foods
available.
Not Easy – but necessary!
Eat a healthful diet on a regular basis, one that is
low in saturated fat and rich in whole grains
and fresh fruits and vegetables.
It will help stabilise your moods.
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19. Changing to a person who exercises regularly is particularly
challenging for people who dislike exercise intensely and
haven’t done any exercise for years, perhaps since school
when they hated sport.
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20. Research indicates that
Exercise has a beneficial impact on mood.
Exercise may reduce the number of bipolar episodes
that a person experiences.
Exercise can also help you sleep better.
Exercising on a regular basis can help you to
manage stress.
Exercise can control weight gain that may result
from medications.
Exercise can help increase feelings
of well-being.
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21. That’s the good news
But let’s face it, who likes to exercise?
But it is essential – difficult but necessary.
You need to find some way of exercising that fits in
with your lifestyle and personality.
It doesn’t necessarily mean going to a gym three
times a week for a workout.
Incorporate your exercise into your everyday life like
walking, gardening or socialising (e.g. dancing).
And make it easier by using something that
helps like the Runkeeper App for iPhone:
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23. Essential to track your moods but who wants to change their
lifestyle to incorporate such a simple task.
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24. Wherever you are,
Whatever you are doing,
Incorporate a way of tracking your moods.
It is essential if a little boring and inconvenient.
Make it easy, so it doesn’t get in the way and
interferes with the things you want to be doing.
There is no easier way than
Optimism app for iPhone:
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26. Choosing your life partner will be challenging to your “new
found” lifestyle because the person you fall for may not be
the person who is the best for your health.
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27. Surround yourself with people who love and support
you in a positive way as you have to realise that the
issues of others could actually make you ill.
Try to avoid:
Contentious
Troublesome
Worrisome and/or
Negative relationships
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28. Sex and Depression
You may have to accept your limitations when it
comes to sex.
The lack of desire for intimacy.
Impotence.
or the inability to have an orgasm.
These may all be side-effects of your medication or
bipolar depression causing embarrassment, stress,
anxiety and relationship problems.
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29. Sex and Hypomania
Hypersexuality
Sexual addiction
Inappropriate sexual expression
Putting yourself in risky sexual situations
Knowing this before hand you might be able to
challenge these disordered desires even though they
seem very appealing at the time.
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30. Your core support network should include your family.
However, your relationships with your family may be strained and/or
they just have too much to do to be part of your bipolar
experiences. It maybe that the effort to be “there” as much as you
want them to be is not a priority for them.
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31. The challenge maybe to work out or identify who it
is in your family that you can rely on to be part of
your self-management.
You need someone who is prepared to learn about
bipolar and how you experience it.
You need someone to give you the appropriate
feedback – someone you can trust.
And you will need to keep yourself to yourself
with the others or all of them if you can’t
find someone to fill this role for you.
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32. Often a radical change of lifestyle results in giving up your
closest friends because their lifestyle is incompatible with your
illness and a healthy way of life.
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33. Surround yourself with people who are a positive
influence and won't encourage unhealthy behaviour
or attitudes that can worsen your bipolar disorder.
Also it is not uncommon that friends will disappear
because of times when you have acted
inappropriately.
Accepting this may be difficult.
True friends will stick by you no matter what.
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34. How you go about setting goals and the choices you make
are very important and challenging, even for those without
bipolar.
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35. Lifestyle choices can affect your
health in a positive or negative way
Relationships – as above
Deciding where to live
Which Job to take
Asking for reasonable adjustments
The threat of losing your job or college place
Coping with unemployment and a life on benefits and feeling
unemployable,
Where to take your holiday
Which sports or recreational club to join
These are just a few examples.
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36. A challenging lifestyle change that we can overlook is how we
go about making decisions that affect our lives.
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37. In times of elevated or depressed
mood it is advisable to:
Avoid making major life decisions and/or changes.
Avoid impulsive decisions.
Avoid reacting to something but respond appropriately in
your own time and with due reflection.
Avoid being pushed or manipulated into decisions by
others.
When you are relatively stable make sure the choice you
make is in your own best interest.
The golden rule: if you are agitated and lose
your peace it is often the wrong thing for you.
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38. It is challenging to become a person who can manage their
response to pressure and develop the ability to cope with a
higher level of stress.
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39. Stress can mess with your sleep, your
body chemistry, and your ability to cope.
Stress is incompatible with mood stability.
You have two choices:
Adopt a lifestyle that doesn’t include too much stress
which may limit your options for work etc.
Develop ways of coping with the amount of stress you
will come across in your chosen lifestyle.
Or a bit of both.
Stress will have a major impact on your lifestyle
choices.
It will come from all areas of your life.
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40. Anxiety can aggravate mood symptoms in many people with
bipolar disorder.
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41. You may not think this is a challenging lifestyle
change but it takes a real effort to relax.
You will need to be firm with yourself
and assertive with others
You will need to recognise that periods of relaxation
are necessary for your mental wellbeing
This might mean taking yourself away from others
when this might seem unsociable to them.
Find what is relaxing for you and make it
part of your schedule.
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42. The use of alcohol and recreational drugs is incompatible with
bipolar self-management.
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43. It’s easy – I’ll sum it up for you:
Do NOT use illegal drugs.
Remove yourself from those people who do use
them – avoid peer pressure.
You will have to choose to stop heavy drinking.
Do NOT drink on a daily basis and/or binge drink at
weekends – it will affect your social life.
Alcohol and drugs can affect how your medications
work.
They worsen bipolar disorder symptoms
They may trigger a mood episode.
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44. You may have to curb your desire to be great at everything.
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45. The following will destabilise your
moods:
Striving for perfection.
Failing to reach the unrealistic goals you have set
yourself.
Trying to immerse yourself in too many activities.
Trying to keep up with others.
Not recognising your limitations imposed on you by
your mental illness.
This will be in all areas –
reasonable adjustments to everything in life.
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46. “This is my kingdom, you do what I say”.
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47. You will probably have to recognise at some point
that you are not the master of your own universe
but a bit player in something greater than you.
It is generally about control and requires:
Letting go
Acceptance
Humility.
Seeing the larger Picture.
And may require developing a spiritual life.
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48. Life throws up unexpected events that can throw us into
instability if we allow it to.
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49. Develop coping skills for what life throws at you.
Don’t be a person whose moods are connected to
life events.
Don’t overreact to circumstances that are beyond
your control.
Try to remain calm at all times.
Recognise when you are becoming irritable.
Manage your anger.
Manage your tolerance to frustrations.
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50. What are you willing to do to help yourself?
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51. Managing Bipolar Disorder requires:
Exploring your current habits.
Adapting them to maintain optimal mood
stability.
Cut away, add missing elements and radically
change things for the best if this is not the
case.
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52. It’s not always easy to
change behaviours:
Needs practice.
Patience.
Motivation.
Encouragement from oneself.
Encouragement and Support from partners, family and true
friends.
Self monitoring of your progress.
Rewarding yourself when you make positive changes.
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53. GOOD LUCK
April’s Self-Management Course will be
on Thursday 28th April:
An interview with Christine and Laura
from
Maldon Bipolar Services
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