Tips for stopping mania in its tracks

[TheBespokeBarnacle]

OK, so its 2:15am and I am not asleep again, despite taking my meds at around 11 o'clock. I've been like this for a couple of weeks now and I am coming to the realisation that I may be going a bit manic.

On the bright side, I've been exceptionally productive in some areas. On the darker side, I'm starting to get disorganised now, which is deffo not productive.

I went to my GP who has given me some zopiclone to get me to sleep. I've not taken any tonight as it was too late when I got in and didn't want to be a zombie tomorrow. I will definitely take it tomorrow night though.

Anyone got any other good ideas about how to stop going manic?

Apparently, according to some. The inability to sleep at the right time is actually a medical problem, which is to do with your body clock. my sister and I are both night owls and have been for years.
I would suggest it sounds to me that you have a very busy and stressful day, as you were late getting in and did not take your Zipiclone.
A lot of things are related to not getting sleep and you need to assess by a process of elimination what is causing your problem. You need to think back to when it started and try to figure out what has caused it. have you for instance changed your bedroom around, bought new pillows, become obsessed with gadjets, are neew neighbours disturbing your sleep? there are numerious causes of a sudden change in your sleep pattern, even a new clock in the room can cause problems. Or a change in your eating/drinking routine. To find out you need to eliminate any obvious changes and then think of any changes you can make yourself to improve your chances of a good nights sleep. The final thing is to spend an hour sitting in a dimly lit room, without any Tv or other distractions whatsoever before your normal bedtime. So if you want to go to bed at 11pm a nice quiet peaceful dimly lit room from 10pm, might work, you may need to do this for a few days before it starts having an effect.
As for myself and sis, she has to wait until 2am and I normally am wide awake until about 4am.
But we have been like this for as long as we can remember and the suggestions above did not work for either of us. But like I say in my first sentence we are aware that we have a condition and you sound like you are just suffering a bout of insomina.
Hope this helps.

Generally the only thing that stops me getting manic is lorazepam. Obviously everyone's different but I'm 14 years post-diagnosis and have yet to find a "natural" way to stop it.

is it the time of year? I'm not sleeping either but not in a particularly bad way

am at a bit of a loss as to what to do to be as normal as possible, usually I would probably agree to take or take more of an antipsychotic or something like lorazepam, but I know I used to have a list of what to do/not to do during a period of being At Risk For Becoming Unwell stuck on the fridge and around the house but have completely lost and forgotten it all

I suppose it's stuff not listening to dance music or doing anything excessively exciting, not taking phoning people all the time, not getting into fights and staying up all night, not drinking or taking any drugs not prescribed for you that sort of thing? My new dr said 'tell all your friends and family so they can help keep an eye on you' but that was not spectacularly helpful because it makes people worried and less receptive to any ideas you might have about things

what worked last time OP?

ccridersuz - thanks for all of the advice. I'll certainly look at my wind down routine and may stick a bath in at the end of a day.

Sadly its not just insomnia. I have bipolar and when well am out like a light by 11pm unless I'm out somewhere. I'm awake as my mind is racing and just full of music and songs going round and round an then just random thoughts.

Last time Mitchy I just went manic. This time I know I need to sort it out before I do as the crash is not worth it (I am repeating that as a mantra so I don't forget.)

I need to up my anti-psycs, but my psych is on holiday. Will see if I can get a change in script off another - I'll ask my CPN.

In the light of day its easier to work out what to do. In the middle of the night when my mind is buzzing its not so clear.

how are you?

I think we started threads about the same time, am not convinced my mood is that high but every time I see a dr at the moment they are singing the praises of benzos and either quetiapine or risperdal (or even olanzapine) plus increasing the lithium - they seem to think this is the answer to everything