The Bipolar Brain
Bipolar Brain Structure
Bipolar disorder is a condition that affects the brain's chemistry, leading to difficulties in regulating emotions. Just like someone with diabetes has a pancreas that struggles to regulate blood sugar levels, bipolar disorder affects the brain's ability to regulate brain chemicals and hormones that influence our moods. This lack of regulation disrupts the normal functioning of nerve cells responsible for emotions, resulting in intense mood swings. If you are living with bipolar, it's essential to know that it's normal to experience times when your emotions may feel overwhelming or difficult to control, and that doesn't mean that you're to blame. With treatment that includes medication and therapy, you will learn how to manage your emotions so they don’t manage you.
What Brain Chemicals Cause Mania and Depression?
People with bipolar disorder may experience episodes of mania, or a lighter version, hypomania, characterized by heightened energy levels and impulsivity, or periods of depression, marked by feelings of sadness and low energy. Unhealthy levels of stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline often induce periods of mania. Lower-than-normal levels of serotonin and dopamine usually mark periods of depression. These shifts in mood are hard to manage and can impact your daily life, making things much more difficult.
How it Impacts Sleep
The brain chemicals that control our emotions hit people with bipolar the hardest in the ways it affects your sleep. Have you ever felt anticipation of something big happening the next day? Maybe a presentation, a championship game, or a vacation? Excitement can make it hard to sleep. Adrenaline and cortisol are the hormones responsible for excitement, as well as anxiety and panic. These hormones can keep our brains up at night and make sleeping hard. If you have bipolar, your brain kicks on stress hormones quickly and releases unhealthy amounts, which makes it hard to rest and sleep well during a manic episode.
During bipolar depression, you will have a lower-than-normal amount of serotonin and dopamine in the brain. These hormones are sometimes called “happy hormones,” as they affect positive mood and emotion. Lack of serotonin and dopamine will also impact your sleep. You will feel tired and often will sleep too much. Even if you’re getting a healthy amount of sleep, when you have lower serotonin and dopamine levels, you always feel tired.
Medication is essential in treating someone with bipolar disorder. Your brain cannot self-regulate the chemicals that impact your mood and behavior. However, mood stabilizers ensure that you have consistent, healthy levels of hormones that influence your emotions. Just as medication management is a crucial part of treatment, we work on finding all of the holistic strategies, coping skills, and healthy habits that help stabilize your highs and lows and create balance.
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