6 pillars for staying healthy 😊
Like many things, recovery can be seen as a pyramid—similar to Maslow's hierarchy. These are the essential pillars for regaining and maintaining good mental health:
- 😴 Sleep
- 🍎 Nutrition
- 💧 Hydration
- 🏋️ Physical activity
- ☀️ Light exposure
- 👥 Social connections
The recovery path is unique for everyone, but these pillars are solid foundations to begin with. 🌟
Building healthy personal relationships 😊
Whether you're working on improving an existing relationship or building a new one, keep the following in mind:
- Sharing common interests: if your shared interests mainly revolve around drinking, smoking, or using drugs, consider shaping the relationship around healthier activities or spending more time with other friends.
- Acceptance and understanding: accepting and understanding bipolar disorder is difficult—even for you. So it's normal that your loved ones may struggle too. As they learn more about bipolar disorder, they can develop more acceptance and empathy.
- Appreciation: people who love and value you often do so not despite your bipolar disorder, but also because of it—or at least partly. Be mindful of people who are drawn to your excessive behaviors; they might unknowingly encourage unhealthy choices for their own entertainment.
- Support: mood stabilization takes extra effort. You need a supportive circle around you to help with that.
Relieving stress and anxiety through exercise 🏃
You probably know that exercise is good for both body and mind—but here’s how it helps specifically with bipolar disorder:
- Exercise reduces depression symptoms without triggering mania: it’s a powerful tool to build and maintain more positive mood states, and it carries no risk of triggering mania (though excessive exercise could be a sign of emerging hypomania—especially when hyperactivity affects all areas of life).