{"id":1396,"date":"2013-12-21T15:24:40","date_gmt":"2013-12-21T23:24:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/blog-reader-question-on-bipolar-disorder-and-anxiety\/"},"modified":"2018-05-15T09:58:13","modified_gmt":"2018-05-15T16:58:13","slug":"blog-reader-question-on-bipolar-disorder-and-anxiety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/blog-reader-question-on-bipolar-disorder-and-anxiety\/","title":{"rendered":"Blog Reader Question on Bipolar Disorder and Anxiety"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi Julie,<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

I am having a really rough time with anxiety and i haven\u2019t been able to track down what the issue is. I\u2019ve also been cycling very rapidly from morning to night. Wish i knew what the problem is. Gail<\/strong> <\/span><\/p>\n

Hi Gail,<\/p>\n

I’ve had anxiety for many years- it’s a normal part of bipolar and it can be reduced. It comes from many areas:<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0 Work- sometimes the requirements of work are stressful for people with bipolar disorder.\u00a0 I remember working as a teacher- as long as I was with my students I was fine- but when the classes ended, I would go into the teacher’s lounge and lie on the couch. I am not like that at all anymore now that I do the stuff in my books- I can work through the anxiety, but it is still often there<\/p>\n

2. Relationships- I don’t date because the situation adds too much pressure to my brain and the anxiety and OCD get bad.\u00a0 I think we all have our weak spots for anxiety. Also, any difficult relationship can lead to anxiety. Calm relationships are essential. Yes, it’s hard to do this if the troublesome person is a partner, family member or coworker, but it has to be done. If you look at the relationship tab to the right or read Loving Someone with Bipolar Disorder<\/em> ( for partners, it helps) there are suggestions.<\/p>\n

3. Travel- this causes stress for most with bipolar as there are often time changes, lots of people in airports, tons of things to do before you go and family member squabbles- this doesn’t mean you won’t have fun- it means that the travel itself can be difficult.<\/p>\n

4. Caffeine- people with anxiety should cut out caffeine completely and see if it helps. My coauthor Dr. John Preston says that if you do drink caffeine, you should keep it to less that 250 mg a day.<\/p>\n

5.\u00a0 Medications- many meds can make you nervous, shaky, jittery or just worried. Check with your doc if you think this is the case. Be very careful with herbs and supplements as well.<\/p>\n

6.\u00a0 Bipolar Disorder Itself- sometimes the anxiety is purely from the illness without a trigger.\u00a0Mania can be really, really anxiety causing if it’s dysphoric mania. In fact, dysphoric mania means agitated mania.\u00a0\u00a0 90% of depression has mania.\u00a0 So the better you treat bipolar, the less\u00a0anxiety you can have. This is hard to deal with of course as you can\u2019t simply stop doing something in order to get better.\u00a0 Medications such as Ativan or Klonopin can really help here. I use Ativan in very small amounts- .5 mg for example. Yes, they can be addictive \u2013 but most people with bipolar disorder take them without getting addicted, so make sure your doctor doesn\u2019t simply say no because of the addiction chance. He or she can give you just a few to start.\u00a0 Some people with bipolar have the anxious type- this means the better they manage the bipolar, the less anxiety they have.\u00a0 My book Take Charge of Bipolar Disorder<\/em> has a good treatment plan for this.<\/p>\n

I could go on for pages, but I will stop here- all of my books, especially The Health Cards Treatment System for Bipolar Disorder<\/em> \u00a0talk about anxiety\u00a0– you can read more about them on \u00a0www.BipolarHappens.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I also feel the Complete Idiot’s Guide to Anxiety<\/em> by Joni Johnston is excellent.<\/p>\n

Thanks for writing,<\/p>\n

Julie<\/p>\n

This information is also available on Facebook and through my latest newsletter. Feel free to post the link on your Facebook page!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi Julie,<\/p>\n

I am having a really rough time with anxiety and i haven\u2019t been able to track down what the issue is. I\u2019ve also been cycling very rapidly from morning to night. Wish i knew what the problem is. Gail <\/p>\n

Hi Gail,<\/p>\n

I’ve had anxiety for many years- it’s a normal part of bipolar and it can be reduced. It comes from many areas:<\/p>\n

1. Work- sometimes the requirements of work are stressful for people with bipolar disorder. I remember working as a teacher- as long as I was with my students I was fine- but when the classes ended, I would go into the teacher’s lounge and lie on the couch. I am not like that at all anymore now that I do the stuff in my books- I can work through the anxiety, but it is still often there<\/p>\n

2. Relationships- I don’t date because the situation adds too much pressure [ Read More ]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1396"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1396"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11337,"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1396\/revisions\/11337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}