Impulse Control & Addiction Disorders
Impulse Control & Addiction Disorder Medications
Personality Disorder Treatment
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) Treatment
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Treatment
Are Mental Health Problems Preventable?
How Do You Know if You Are Mentally Unwell?
Mood disorder is a very broad term that refers to any mental health disorder that causes mood shifts and swings. It includes bipolar disorder, depression, dysphoric disorder, and many others. While there are many different mood disorders, all conditions in this class cause unexpected and inconsistent mood swings. They can happen to people of all ages, races, gender, and religion and can be quite serious.
If left untreated, a mood disorder can lead to serious depression and the risk of suicide. Therefore, it is important to address mood disorders and have them treated accordingly. Some mood disorders are curable, while others are manageable with therapy and medications so that your symptoms are not unbearable.
Because most mood disorders result in depression, antidepressants are often prescribed to treat this condition. Antidepressants, which can include SSRIs or SNRIs, are the most effective treatment for mood disorders. They chemically alter how your brain functions, resulting in a feeling of happiness rather than sadness.
Antipsychotics, such as clozapine and quetiapine, are also used to treat mood disorders. Antipsychotics block dopamine receptors in the brain, which are often responsible for overstimulation that can lead to feelings of mania and psychosis. By blocking these receptors, antipsychotics reduce your brain activity, resulting in feelings of calmness and serenity.
Also used to treat depression that results from mood disorders, mood stabilizers are extremely effective. Mood stabilizers, such as carbamazepine and lamotrigine, help calm your brain down and reduce the amount of abnormal activity inside of it. This can help prevent mood swings and negative thoughts, which are common to most mood disorders.
Medications are a good start for treating mood disorders. They are often prescribed in conjunction with various forms of psychotherapy, which is intended to teach you how to cope with your emotions and negative feelings.
The goal of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is to help you understand your thoughts and feelings and how they interact. By understanding this relationship, you can learn not to let your emotions get the better of you and lead to anger, depression, or other unwanted feelings. If your condition is especially intense, you may need a more advanced version of CBT, known as dialectical behaviour therapy.
Mindfulness-based intervention is similar to CBT but is less intense. It is more focused on helping people use meditative practices to self-soothe or calm themselves if they are in the midst of a mood swing.
In addition to medications and psychotherapy, you can also treat mood disorders with several alternative therapies. Electroconvulsive therapy involves sending an electrical impulse through your brain to alter your brain cells and chemicals and relieve depression. You can also opt for transcranial magnetic stimulation, which releases magnetic energy in the brain to alter your emotions.
While these alternative therapies can be effective, they are also invasive. Electroconvulsive therapy and transcranial magnetic stimulation can cause memory loss, irritation, nausea, headaches, confusion, and fatigue.
Because mood disorders do not always have visible symptoms, they can be difficult to identify and diagnose. However, mood disorders can be just as dangerous as many physical disorders and require the same amount of attention. By using the treatments in this article, you can keep your mood disorder under control and from severely altering your life and personality.