- Hi, I'm Dr. Tracey Marks, a psychiatrist
and I make mental health education videos.
Today I'm talking about springtime mania.
Why it happens and what you can do about it.
As we move from winter to spring and into summer,
we get longer days and more exposure to sunlight.
And as such, you may notice that your mood is ramping up.
But it's actually not how much light you're exposed to,
it's the rapid change in light
that makes the biggest difference in triggering mania
or hypomania.
But here's where the longer days can impact you negatively.
Longer days means more evening activities
and these can be activities that may not end
until 9:00 at night.
Then it takes you longer to settle down in the evenings
and before you know it, you're staying up later and later
and getting less sleep; and less sleep feeds mania.
Let's review how the seasons work when it comes
to the length of the daylight and I'm explaining
what happens in the Northern Hemisphere.
In December, we have the Winter Solstice
which is the shortest day of the year and the longest night.
Typically that falls around December 21st or 22nd.
Then, as we go through the winter into January and February,
the days lengthen and the nights get shorter.
When we get to March, we hit the Spring Equinox
when there's an equal amount of daylight and night
and this is usually around March 20th.
From there, the days get longer and longer
until you reach the Summer Solstice in June
when you have the longest day of the year
and the shortest period of nighttime.
Then the nights stretch out and become longer
until you reach the Fall Equinox in September.
Then you have an equal amount of day and night again.
Then the days get shorter until you reach
the Winter Solstice in December
and the cycle starts all over again.
These differences in day and night are greatest
as you get further away from the equator
so Winter Solstice in parts of Alaska
means 24 hours of night.
For example, Barrow, Alaska, in the Arctic Circle
experiences 67 days of darkness from November to January
and 80 days of straight daylight in June and July.
That's the backdrop of this.
What's this got to do with mania?
People with bipolar disorder can be very sensitive
to changes in your circadian rhythm or your body clock
and some people are more sensitive than others.
The light is a very powerful trigger
that affects your circadian rhythm
and your circadian rhythm not only controls when you sleep,
but it also affects when you feel hungry
and when your energy rises and falls
so if your body clock gets thrown off,
you can feel hungry at odd hours and you could have energy
at a time when you shouldn't be energetic
such as in the middle of the night.
That rate of change and sunlight varies
by area of the country.
In the United States, sunlight increases most rapidly
in the Sunbelt, Northwest, and Northern Midwest
so if you live in these areas,
you should really pay close attention
to changes in mood and activity level in March and April.
What can you do about this?
The first is to recognize signs
that you may be coming manic.
Typical signs are things like having irregular sleep,
pressured speech, and lots of activity.
Pressured speech is more than just speaking fast.
To the person listening, it may sound like the person
is speaking with run-on sentences.
You can't find a way to interrupt their train of thought
because the words just keep on coming.
You may have trouble understanding what they're saying
because they may be jumping from thought to thought
and you just get lost.
You may find that you lose track of the point
that they were making.
You may also feel like you're being assaulted with words
because it's too loud or forceful.
You can feel like, "I'm just right here."
And that's what you see on the outside
with pressured speech.
But to the person who has the speech,
you may feel like you've got all these thoughts
in your head that you just have to get out
and it can almost feel like you can't speak fast enough
to keep up with what's going on in your head.
And if someone does try to interrupt you,
it can make you feel anxious or agitated
because there's a sense of urgency to say this stuff
in its entirety and you can't stop until you get it out.
Also be aware that mania or hypomania that's triggered
in the spring may not always be happy mania.
It may bring in mixed symptoms that make you look
and feel agitated.
The classic phrase is wired, but tired.
The springtime can bring on more anxiety and destabilization
from where you were in the winter.
That's intervention one, recognizing your symptoms.
The second thing that you can do is establish a routine
that you maintain year-round, but you really keep it tight
and controlled around this time, probably starting
around February.
We call this Social Rhythm Therapy.
People with bipolar disorder tend to respond very well
to maintaining a very consistent routine.
With Social Rhythm Therapy, there are multiple things
that you do during the day that could be part
of the routine that you keep, but some researchers
have shown that there are four activities in particular
that matter more than the others and these activities are
the time that you get out of bed,
the time that you have your first contact with someone,
the time that you start to do your work or your chores,
and the time that you eat dinner.
The goal would be to keep the times for all of these points
in the day around the same.
That's intervention number two, keeping a strict routine
from about February through May
if you're in the Northern Hemisphere.
The last thing that you can do
is bring out the blue light blocking glasses.
I talked about this in a video that I did on Dark Therapy.
Just as sunlight can trigger mania,
darkness can treat it and full-on Dark Therapy
to treat mania involves wearing the glasses
to block the blue light from 6 P.M. to 8 A.M.
But when you're not in mania, a preventative measure
or maintenance routine would be wearing them
one to two hours before your bedtime.
And this means setting a regular bedtime
which you should do anyway
because keeping your sleep regular
also helps prevent the onset of mania.
That's intervention number three,
wear your blue light blocking glasses one to two hours
before bedtime.
For more information on Dark Therapy,
watch this video.
It's also something people without bipolar disorder can do
to regulate sleep.
See you next time.