Bipolar Mood Management

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It’s helpful to keep an eye on what your mood’s doing, how it fluctuates, and what you and others notice about you when your mood starts to go low or high. Living with Bipolar is a balancing act – the aim being to stay within the area around 0 on the scale below, when you’re most healthy and balanced.

Click here to print this page, and fill in the table on page 1 (illustrated below) – think about and write down what you start to feel like, the way you start to think, and what you do when you start to become high or low, and when you are very high or low. Ask close friends and family to help you – they will notice things about you which you might not be aware of.

Make an Action Plan

Complete each box of the action plan below, writing what you need to do at those times in order to make your mood more balanced.

Examples might include:	Webpage:
STOPP	www.getselfhelp.co.uk/stopp.htm
Challenging unhelpful thoughts	www.getselfhelp.co.uk/cbtstep4.htm & step 5
Self talk	www.getselfhelp.co.uk/affirmations.htm
Changing your focus of attention	www.getselfhelp.co.uk/cbtstep6.htm & www.getselfhelp.co.uk/mindfulness.htm
Planning and doing activities that help you feel better, and cutting down on what doesn’t help	www.getselfhelp.co.uk/cbtstep3.htm
Relaxation	www.getselfhelp.co.uk/relax.htm
Talking to someone
Visualisation: Breathe in green (for balance), breathe out red (if high) or blue/black (if depressed).	www.getselfhelp.co.uk/imagery.htm
Medication: take it as prescribed and talk to your health professional before making changes

Daily Mood Monitoring

Complete a line each day, or more often if you (or someone else) notices that you’re feeling more stressed or vulnerable, or notice any other changes. When you (or someone else) notices your mood dropping or rising too much, start your action plan.

Monitor your mood each day using the form on page 3